NACH
by DREAMIRIS
Summary: When new love knocks into life, should one stand back and think of the bigger picture, or should one embrace it and be swept by the passion that the affair brings about? Especially when said love knocks in the form of a whirlwind student-teacher romance? *MY TAKE ON THE ADVENTURE OF THE GLORIA SCOTT*
1. Victor

**And yes, I'm finally starting with the one story that I've been excited about for a long time: my take on the Adventure of The Gloria Scott. Past Viclock, Established Johnlock, Unilock, student/teacher-thing, massive case in Part II**

* * *

 **PART I: Chapter One**

John was, to put it in the shortest way, pissed.

To put it in a slightly longer way involved quite a story.

The most regular visitor at 221B Baker Street was Mrs. Hudson (and her much loved trifles and baking pleasures), followed by DI Lestrade and then Bill Wiggins, who claimed himself to be Sherlock's protégé (and Sherlock denied that almost every time he staked that claim). Although Sherlock Holmes personally never liked having his Homeless Network reporting to him at his residence and preferred texts as the universal medium of gathering information, Billy was generally the exception, for Sherlock often used him as a lab assistant, and his representative while dealing with his Homeless Network people. John had often expressed his dissent about Billy being a former burglar and meth addict (and neither really liked the other since their first meeting-cum-sparring) and with Sherlock placing so much trust in Billy to even give him their house keys, but Sherlock never really listened to him.

However, when that day Billy came running to 221B without an appointment, Sherlock was, needless to say, surprised, and very, very angry.

"Why, Billy—?!" he began, but upon seeing Billy's excited manner, he calmed himself down at once. For a moment, John thought that there was someone after Billy's life, and then he dismissed the thought at once.

"He knows your name!" Billy exclaimed breathlessly, in his Cockney drawl, "Sherlock, he knows your name!"

Sherlock gave him the eyebrow. John put down his early dinner and turned to face Billy, "A lot of people know Sherlock's name, Billy."

"Not that," he panted, and sat down on the carpet. John reached out to give Billy a glass of water, while Sherlock kneeled down beside him.

After gulping down a generous amount, he regained his breath, "I was going on my usual duties. There I was, under the Waterloo Bridge. Penny—the one with the oily pigtails—she had a new one with him. Said she found him being attacked by dogs and saved him. He's quietly huddled in a corner, smallish, white-grey frizzy hair, dirty. I look at his face, I ask him his name, he doesn't reply. He seems brainy, I look at his hands, and they've done lot of written and lab work but not much of late. I think he can do some work, but he's so weak and old, but I feel bad—he's my old man's age—so I still ask him—"do you want to work for Sherlock Holmes"—and for the first time, he looks at me, and he asks—"Sherlock Holmes? William Sherlock Scott Holmes?" —and I run when I hear this. . ."

John frowned. There were only a handful of those who knew Sherlock's full name: himself, Moriarty (who was long dead), Sherlock's family, and Bill Wiggins. And probably Mrs. Hudson. Not even DI Lestrade, or Molly Hooper, knew that his first name was William, not Sherlock.

"Was we wearing a wedding ring, or band or anything of that sort?"

The question caused John to spin around to look at Sherlock. Was he really guessing?

"Yep," Bill answered, "I thought it was weird. Man living on the streets, with the platinum band on his finger," then he turned to John, "I know the shine of platinum, mind you—"

"Was he wearing glasses?"

"No."

"Did he say anything else? Did he have anything else on him?"

"I dunno," Billy scratched his head untidily, "Didn't want to inform you over phone. Your brother—"

"And you did wisely," Sherlock said and on the inside, John rolled his eyes. Mycroft wasn't going to go to the extent of tapping their phones, having not-seen some pretty racy stuff on the cameras previously installed around.

John glanced at Sherlock. Wiggins' excitement seemed to have spread to him as well. While his face would look detached to any outsider, John could tell, in the bobbing of his right thigh, in the trembling in his fingers that he was trying so hard to control, in the pitch of his voice. Something was up.

"So I came here. And yes, I remember one more thing."

"What is it?" Sherlock sounded almost breathless.

"The wedding band. . . it had an inscription on it. G.S."

In no time, Sherlock was up, and had his coat in his grip, "I'll see him at once."

* * *

The next part was pretty confusing for John. The girl with the oily pigtails under the Waterloo Bridge called Penny was having a late supper of bread and water when John and Sherlock, along with Billy arrived at the scene. John knew that girl, she was one of the six most valuable informers in Sherlock's Homeless Network. The old man sitting beside her was subdued, huddled in the blankets that she usually slept in. He kept his chin down, the frizzy grey hairs were untidily covered with Penny's bonnet. He was thin as a lath, and extremely, extremely dirty.

For a moment, Sherlock did not move from near their car. He stared at the old man long and hard, his nimble fingers twitching and gripping the door, as if thinking whether to go or not.

"Are you going to go?" John whispered in his ear. Sherlock, unlike himself, gave a start.

"Yes. Sorry."

The way Sherlock walked up to the old man, it almost frightened John. Every step was careful, as if the ground tread upon was full of landmines. His eyes were wide, brows furrowed and he often gulped to himself. John entertained himself with this curious transformation of Sherlock Holmes from the high-maintenance suffering-from-superiority-complex boyfriend to the reverent man watchful of his step.

When Sherlock finally reached him, he gently touched the dirty man on his shoulder, waiting for signs of recognition. And when it did dawn, the man's features turned around completely. His eyes were red when he gazed at Sherlock as if he had seen the God himself. Those eyes had authority, character written over them. His forehead was broad, a measure of intellectual capacity, and despite his state and age, John could tell that he had had been quite handsome in his youth. His lower lip trembled and he covered Sherlock's hand with his own extremely dirty one. Personally, Sherlock was averse to touching such people, claiming to "scratch their backs and then disinfect himself", but he held the man with such affection that John couldn't help but wonder who that man was, how he knew Sherlock and what could've caused him such a deplorable downfall.

Then Sherlock turned, and John saw a different man. He looked at John as if he didn't know who he was.

"Thank you, Billy," and then turning back to the old man, he whispered, "Come with me."

* * *

"That's a whole load of stuff that you're talking about, Sherlock," John said, pressing his fingers to his eyes, "Stuff that only _I_ have to move. Only me. I know you, you're not going to touch a single thing!"

"We'll hire someone, then," Sherlock said dismissively.

"We can't afford to hire a full-time help, Sherlock! And I don't even know who this tramp is, and what—"

"John, he's not a tramp. Don't you dare call him a tramp."

"Then tell me, who _is_ he? I deserve to know at least our house guests!"

Sherlock usually got silent at this point every time John had asked him the question for the past two days, which infuriated John even further. But he didn't let himself get any angrier, for anger was not the solution. But it was a chaste question, the man's identity. Why did Sherlock have to fall into such a deep quarry trying to answer it?

For the past two days, Sherlock had taken upon himself the responsibility to take care of that old man. John hadn't believed that it was even possible. There had not been a single day which had gone by without calling upon DI Lestrade or DI Morton until this mystery man's arrival. It was like Sherlock had forgotten his identity. For the past two days since the man had arrived, Sherlock had turned into a full-time valet. John and he only spent the meal time together, and he couldn't be any gladder for a more significant allowance.

And at night, John would hear strange stifled noises coming from their bedroom, which the man now occupied (and John took the sofa, to his annoyance, and Sherlock slept god-knew-where). Sherlock would retreat into their bedroom, close the door on the world, and spend hours inside, till perhaps his bedtime. Doing what, nobody knew, save the two of them. For a time, John entertained the thought that they were old friends, but Sherlock wouldn't hesitate to speak of an "old friend". Then he thought that maybe, they had been lovers, but John knew Sherlock since their Uni days, and the man's age ruled that out. Sherlock was extremely fastidious; he had all sorts of boundaries about who he would date and who he wouldn't despite his own feelings, as the Woman had proved. Sherlock obviously wouldn't date someone this much older than him.

What was this man?

"Just," John gave a defeated sigh, "tell me his name, so that I can. . . call him by something."

Sherlock's jaw twitched, "Call him Mr. Trevor," after a small pause, he added, "He needs respect, of all things."

John had no idea what Sherlock meant by that.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Sherlock and John had many arguments and fights, most of all were about the man, Trevor, and the rest few stemmed because of Trevor's presence in the house. The old man himself was very quiet; he simply used the bathroom in the morning to clean himself, shave his face, brush his teeth, and suddenly after a couple of days, he had begun to look as respectable as John had made him out on the first day. He ate in his own room, not on the bed, but in a chair that Sherlock had provided for him, and John suspected that he realised that he was not entirely welcome in the house.

The first two days, Trevor kept bumping into things after which Sherlock took him to the optician and got him a decent pair of glasses, sent John and Mrs. Hudson on shopping errands for the man, took down the only copy of the Bible and handed it to Trevor. At first John told himself that he understood, this was someone really special to Sherlock(even if that sounded weird). But as days went by, as John began to feel cheated, he put his foot down.

And what happened was surprising.

Sherlock set to clean the second room upstairs and make it habitable all by himself. It was a storeroom of sorts, and biggest subject of their fight only second to Trevor. The bed was cleaned, new sheets were put on, and Sherlock was, all of a sudden, doing so much work (and Mrs. H was helping so much) that even John felt guilty and joined in.

Within two days, Trevor's new room was ready, and he was shifted there. It was then that he first heard Trevor speak, in a low, deep, refined voice.

"Thank you." He looked at Sherlock long, and then turned his eyes to John, John who had never been looked at by the man. Then Trevor smiled, a crinkly old-man smile that reached his eyes, eyes that were still red, yet brown and grateful.

"And to you too, John."

And quietly, with an air of Dalai Lama about him, he let himself be led up the stairs to his new room by Sherlock.

John felt so bad about himself when his inner consciousness felt relieved that he'd finally be able to sleep in his own bed with Sherlock.

* * *

After the first two weeks went, people began arriving at their flat. It was only when Mrs. H came up to tell Sherlock that he had non-case related visitors on a gloomy Saturday morning that Sherlock casually informed him that old friends were, well, coming, and might stay for the night.

The first person who came was a certain Max Miller, in good humour. John knew Max's name from Uni, that he was Sherlock's usual project partner. He'd even seen him during one of the parties that Sherlock had been forced to go to. Dark, clean-shaven and good-natured. Tolerable had been the description that Sherlock had given to John, and back then, John had taken it literally.

"You're in France," Sherlock blinked, as soon as Max crossed the threshold of 221B, "Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique. Working on a "classified" project. Jealously guarded," then he sneered, "Hardly."

"Ah, well," Max smiled uneasily, "your French is good as ever."

"Three kids," Sherlock began again, but John touched his hand, and Sherlock stopped to look at him.

"Not today," John whispered, "please."

Max laughed, "Let him, for once. Haven't heard his monologue since twenty years. My ex-girlfriend once broke up with me because of him."

John chuckled. Sherlock turned childishly sour.

"You must be John. I remember you from graduation," then he shook John's hand enthusiastically, "I'm Max, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you. Welcome."

Introductions were given, handshakes in order, and John sat down to chat Max up because he knew that Sherlock would go up to spend some time with Trevor. Max worked as a Senior Scientist A-2 in high-speed particle physics at CNRS, France. Married, one nightmarish toddler and equally nightmarish twin babies. Pretty impressive, John thought. Sherlock and he were not much for kids, thankfully.

Sherlock's eyes shone the way they had when they had first met Seb Wilkes.

Next to arrive (almost a hour apart) were Debra Carter, a average-looking, average-heighted woman with an air of superiority about her, and Andrew Fisher a tall, well-built man with a French beard, none of whom were glad to see each other, but Deb hugged Sherlock, and Andrew (who had a grumpy face on) shook hands with Sherlock and bearhugged Max. And what was most surprising was that all of them knew John, John who was left behind in this whole business.

Andrew worked for a major firm in Southampton, but he was mute as to the details. Deb worked at the Home Office, and even demanded from Sherlock that he visit her the next time he stopped by.

As she said so, Trevor came downstairs to use the bathroom. And as he did so, he carefully watched the three newcomers, and then at the room which didn't have any decorations or drinks to indicate a party. Sherlock looked nervous, John noticed, and then shortly relieved, when Trevor walked away towards the bathroom, while making himself appear smaller as he walked.

"Who's that?" Andrew whispered, "Your dad?"

"I'll tell you guys later."

Shortly, both of them warned Sherlock to not make fun of "Anna" like they did before. And then they told them all about this Anna, who was married off to some big industrialist called Frost, and that she wasn't very happy. And then the conversation turned very cheerful as Deb asked John how he was dealing with the madman and then it was revealed that Sherlock never spoke of his college friends.

And John was even more perplexed. Sherlock had _friends_ in Uni? Sure, Sherlock was months away from his graduation when they had met, but he could've said something, couldn't he?

Then Deb and Andrew went separate ways, and throughout the day, John observed that not one of the two spoke with each other.

The last to arrive, in the evening, was the said Annabelle "Anna" Frost. Small, pretty and a lot like Molly Hooper in many ways, she did not look unhappy at all. She, in fact, looked excited and immature-ish. She was very happy to meet John and Max, but not so much with Andrew. She and Deb cried when they hugged (at which Sherlock promptly rolled his eyes).

After the dinner (which Sherlock spent most nervously), Trevor came down one last time, and this time, he hid his face as he went to the bathroom.

When Trevor was gone up, Anna whispered to Sherlock, "Is that. . . is _he_ who I think it is?"

Max glanced at Sherlock and then back at Anna. It was obvious that Sherlock had told only Max something about Trevor, "Who do you think it is?"

"Okay," Andy interrupted, "We are four people extra. You said," he pointed at Sherlock, "that we had room downstairs. But I don't like that lady. She shouted at me when I parked the car outside the cafe."

"Mrs. H is a very sweet lady," John jumped to her rescue, "She's been mothering Sherlock for more than half his life."

Sherlock gave him The Look. John gave him The Look back.

Anna laughed, "You two are so cute."

Both of them gave Anna The Look. She blushed and choked on her drink.

"Sorry."

Never the one to mince words or talk of old times, Sherlock put his drink down, and cleared his throat, "John could you. . . give us some privacy?"

John blinked, nonplussed. He hadn't been expecting this. It was like a truck had hit him head-on.

"Um. . . okay."

Three pairs of eyes stared at him as he walked away towards the bedroom and closed the door behind him, suddenly feeling very lonely. Trust was something that John valued very highly in his relationship with Sherlock. He included Sherlock in about everything that he did in his life. So why could Sherlock not include him back?

First Trevor, and now this.

He took down a mini novel to pass the time, but his curiosity was like a ever-raging storm. If Sherlock did not trust him, then there was no reason to keep that trust, was there?

After a couple of minutes, he heard a gasp from outside. He knew it would be wrong, but he wanted to hear what Sherlock did not want to share with him.

"That's," this, John recognised, was Deb's voice, "oh my God, so it really is him?!"

"Oh, I thought we were going to be helping you on a high-profile case," Anna said with a giggle.

She did not just say that, John thought. He heard a deep murmur of Sherlock's voice barely after her exclamation, which he could only imagine to be an insult to her intelligence.

"Do you think he recognised us?" Andrew asked. "He did come down once or twice."

John realised that they were talking about Trevor. He wondered about how the man would feel if he were to listen to this, just like John was listening to them.

"I don't think he did," Max's voice was barely a whisper, "He's not even himself. God knows what happened to him."

"Think _big_ , man," Andrew sneered, and then some unclear muttering, "Remember all his bullshit?"

The only thing that John could make out from their heated discussion was that this Trevor man was someone from Sherlock's Uni days.

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No. Not a single thing."

John frowned. So Sherlock was lying to everyone, not just John.

"You've got to get him into an old care home, Sherlock," this was Deb's voice, and John had to strain his ears to perceive her volume, "You can't keep him here. You shouldn't even have brought him here."

"Deb's right," Andrew said, followed by a slow unintelligible murmur from him.

"You shouldn't have sent John away, "this was Max, "He has a right to hear this."

"Victor "think-big" Trevor is none of your business," Andy said firmly, "call his family, his kids, tell 'em to take him away. Don't get into this again, Sherlock. Please don't."

John gulped, an irrational sort of fear gripping him tight. What did he mean by "again"?

"I did," Sherlock said, and now his voice sounded miserable, "His wife's dead. He has a daughter, Susan. She lives in the States. She doesn't want to come. I've tried everything else. That's why I called you here."

There was silence for a few moments, followed by Deb's angry voice, "What do you mean _she doesn't want to come_? This is her father!"

"Shhh, quiet!"

"How do you know all this? About his wife and kids?"

"He's a detective," Anna said irritably, "of course, he knows."

"So you thought calling us would give you a solution? You call us twenty years after graduation, and why, because of Victor bloody Trevor?"

"You're the one to talk," Sherlock countered back to Andrew with a sneer, "cutting off contact after you had to break up with Deb."

There was a shocked silence of two seconds, after which there was a screech of the chair, followed by Andrew's pissed voice, "I didn't come here to be insulted like this by a freak like you."

"You're not that much of a help anyway."

"Shut up, Sherlock," this was Max, "Andy, it's half past nine. If you want to leave, leave tomorrow morning."

"If you're really the oh-so-famous detective and not a fake hat guy, why don't you work it out by yourself, eh?"

John wished he could have stormed to the living room and confronted Andrew, about on what basis he had the right to say that, even after knowing Sherlock's brilliance and his deductive prowess, and _how dare he question_ his college friend in this manner, a friend he had met after twenty years?

And why was no one coming to his defence?

"Oh, so you too think I'm a fake," Sherlock's voice was perilous.

"Look," Max said hurriedly, "the solution is simple. I observed John today, he isn't happy with this. And I don't think he is happy too. You're making him feel useless."

"How am I making him feel useless?," Sherlock sounded incredulous, "I found him on the streets. He's better off here."

Max gave a disbelieving chuckle, "He doesn't owe you anything. QED, he'd rather be left on the streets than be a burden on you two."

John had to admit, Max had a point.

"That's nonsense."

There was an unintelligible murmur from Max.

"Don't be stupid, I don't even know your son."

"Fine, then _why_ exactly did you call us here?" Deb asked loudly, "I thought you were in a sudden mood of a reunion of sorts, but you were never like that."

Then Sherlock said something at length, after which there was a moment of silence, followed by a massive uproar.

"Have you lost your mind?!"

"I'm not going to take care of him in turns!"

"He's practically nobody to me! And God knows what he's been doing on the streets!"

"Quiet!"

"He remembers you, for some reason," Anna squeaked, "If anyone, you should take care of him. Don't push another burden on me. I've got my in-laws already!"

"Let's talk about this tomorrow," Sherlock's voice sounded so feeble.

"There's nothing about to talk about! I'm not taking him in every three months. Period. And neither should you."

And thus, the argument ended then and there, qith all of them presumably going away for a decent night's sleep. John crept away towards his bed and pretended to be asleep just when Anna asked Sherlock one last question before leaving.

"Did you ever. . . talk with Seb after graduation?"

". . . No."

And there, another lie.

He could hear the party of five going downstairs. Obviously, Sherlock was going to show them where to sleep. It would be small, and anyway, Andy had told them that he'd sleep in his car.

Then Sherlock came, opening the bedroom door and halted there. Then he changed into his pyjamas and crept into the bed with John, spooning him from behind.

"Didn't have to be so busy eavesdropping on us. You could've changed into your nightclothes instead."

John did a mental facepalm, "Max has a point. I deserve to know about what's going on with you."

"You know now. You heard everything."

"And didn't understand much."

"And that's why I didn't want to include you in this."

John stayed quiet for some time, fooling nobody. Then he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry it didn't go as planned."

Sherlock kissed his neck, "They'll leave tomorrow. And anyway, all of them have work on Monday."

John frowned, "You fellas met after twenty years. Could've spent the Sunday at least."

"Nah, this was just an excuse."

John stiffened, and then turned to face Sherlock in the dark, "Excuse?"

"Yeah. I knew that none of them would take Mr. Trevor in. But. . . after bringing him home, I just. . ."

"You just?"

"I, um. . . felt like I had to see these people again. I. . . know it's stupid. But these four were the only ones who were willing to talk with me back at Uni, sometimes even hang out with me. They were friends. . . sort of."

Sherlock stayed quiet for some time, and then continued, "They're all still the same, except that Andy was never this frustrated. Maybe because he's broke, and his car is mortgaged to the firm that he mentioned and his watch is ten years old and repaired several times."

"But he said he worked for that firm."

"Oh, he would say that in front of Deb, wouldn't he?"

John extricated himself from Sherlock's arms to change into his nightclothes. As he thought about the events of the day, one came to his notice.

"You said you contacted Trevor's daughter, Susan. What'd she say?"

"That she didn't want to—"

"Not that part. Why won't she come and take her dad away?"

Sherlock stayed silent for some time, buried in deep contemplation. It was only after John had crept back to Sherlock that he responded scornfully, "That man loved his family. And she. . . she said that she didn't want anything to do with him because he killed her mother."

* * *

By Sunday afternoon, all of Sherlock's friends from Imperial had left. Max was the only one who had stayed till afternoon, showing John hundreds of pictures of his three kids and fondly smiling at their videos, and left early only because he wanted to reach Paris before nightfall. John could hardly believe how empty their house felt after just half-a-day of guests.

It was on a fine Tuesday morning that John found himself alone with Victor Trevor in the flat. It was rare for Sherlock to go out for a length of time, especially when John was around and there were no cases, thus giving John almost no opportunity to be able to speak with Trevor.

Trevor had come down to use the bathroom, and on his way back, he stopped and looked at John. John took that as his onky opportunity to understand all that Sherlock had been keeping from him.

"Can I help you with something, John?"

John wanted to say that it was alright, he could do the kitchen work all by himself. For Victor was old, could've easily been in his late-sixties, but he still had the strength to stand on his feet steadfastly, and his voice was still strong. Even though John barely knew him, or liked him for that matter, he felt a weird sort of respect for the man, the man who could inspire such devotion in Sherlock.

"Um I'm making some breakfast. Sherlock went out without any, so. . ."

"Hmm," Victor smiled fondly, "He used to do that. He'd never listen to me."

John stared at Victor, "Huh."

"So I could. . . make some tea."

"Yeah," John smiled, "that'd be great."

The rest of the time was spent in silence. John couldn't bring himself to ask Trevor a single thing about himself. All he felt was curiosity, full to the brim, and thought that if he didn't open up, he'd explode into tiny bits and pieces.

Victor put down two steamy cups of tea on the table, and thankfully for John, struck a conversation on his own.

"Sherlock told me a lot about you."

John sat down across him, blowing on his tea. It was funny, considering that Sherlock hadn't told John a single thing about Victor.

"Don't worry, he spoke only good things."

John looked up in surprise. This man was teasing him!

"I'm glad he's doing so well. . . and found someone. It's very important, finding someone special to spend the rest of your life with."

John briefly thought back about what Victor Trevor's daughter apparently believed, "You're right."

The two of them sipped their tea in awkward silence. Well, to John it was awkward as hell. Victor looked contented.

"Oh, I put too much sugar in mine," he said quietly.

"I—I don't take any sugar, Mr. Trevor. But it's good."

"Oh," Victor's face fell, just a bit, "shame, that. My wife, she used to make a special sort of tea, at six in the morning. It would smell heavenly and it would taste just right," he breathed in heavily, "And after she died, I asked around at all the groceries, even checked her receipts. But I never found out where she got the tea from."

John had no idea how to respond to that. He glanced at Victor's ring finger. He hadn't taken off his wedding ring. Yet.

"I'm sorry," was all he could manage. Victor just hmm-ed and peacefully went back to his tea. After a minute of barely-contained silence, he spoke again.

"Where did you study, John? Sherlock told me that you were an army doctor."

"I did my MBBS from King's."

Victor's eyes lit up, "There. We have something more in common! This is what I always did, find something in common. That way, it's easier to make friends. Although I have to say, when I first met Sherlock," he said with a fond smile, "we had nothing in common. Not a single thing. It's been twenty years since I first met him. I was a boring, oldhouse person, and he was this," he imitated what seemed like an actor's representation of Caesar, and John could never have imagined that quiet old Victor could be so talkative, "grand young man, but so clever. Mind you, I've never seen a cleverer person his age," he laughed. "He was. . . so interested and passionate about what I had to say, and I. . . I really liked that. Anyway, what were you saying?"

"Yeah, um. . . you were at King's too?"

"Yes, I did my MSc from King's, and then went off to Caltech for eight years. Made many friends, met my wife. Those were the really good days."

John couldn't hide his incredulity, for Victor immediately caught his expression, "It's hard to imagine, eh? Old me, you picked up from trash and. . ."

"No, no. . ." John shook his head, smiling guiltily.

"Nah, it's okay. That girl who found me, she'd have had a good laugh at me too. Ah!" He exhaled happily, "I haven't talked as much in these years as I have in the past few weeks. Your surprise is natural, and actually pleasing. Don't worry."

Victor's words were charming and troubling in equal parts. There were not a lot of men who opened up like this during their first conversation with anyone, much less a man like Victor who had so much baggage. And the way he _took_ Sherlock's name, it sounded like the echo of an old lover. John tried to dismiss that thought. The man, as Sherlock had said, clearly loved his wife very much, even after her death. But the way he kept saying _when I first met Sherlock_ , it didn't sound platonic at the least. . . But the man was so much older. John wanted to know how he met Sherlock, where they met, and so many other trifling details, but pulled the reigns to his thought when Victor began speaking again.

"Actually I wanted to speak with you, John. I sent Sherlock away on a long errand so that I could manage some alone time with you. . . I don't know how he listens to me now, he never did when he was younger."

John's ears perked. Here, he had been working up his courage, and so had been Victor. Comforting to know.

"Alright."

Victor finished his tea in a sip, and put down the cup. John couldn't believe that he was looking at the same man they had found with Penny under the Waterloo Bridge, homeless and dirty. It was then that John noticed how nutrition had filled his figure out, giving his face a glow. Victor looked much respectable, healthier and, if it could be said for a man, radiant. His brown eyes were warm, his smile reached his eyes, eyes that sometimes turned sad, and his laughter was jovial at times. He seemed much younger than he really was.

"Well, I need you to convince Sherlock to wash his hands off me."

Wait, what?

"My hair didn't turn white in the sun, John," he spoke very seriously, all his good humour gone, "As heart-warming it is that he wants to keep me as a permanent guest, I won't be responsible for driving a wedge between the two of you. I'd like to move out of here as soon as possible. I've told him that countless times, but he wouldn't listen to me."

"That's not true, Mr. Trevor. It's just that I have a severe shoulder ache and I can't sleep on the sofa, that was all that our argument was about."

Victor smiled a sad smile, "I understand that Sherlock hasn't been completely honest with you. He should've been. Trust is very important in a relationship, and it's something that you deserve after having co-operated with him for so much: letting an unknown man into your place, letting him stay for absolutely nothing in return."

John flushed, "Thank you."

"That's all I request. Perhaps, it's time for me to spend time with people my own age."

With that, he rose up, and strode towards the second floor, but then paused on the landing, "Just so you know, I'm Sherlock's old professor, at Imperial. Department of Chemistry."

* * *

When Sherlock came back, he paused to examine John's movements, and then sat down on his chair and began checking his emails.

"So," John began.

"You talked with Mr. Trevor," Sherlock said bluntly, without turning his head, "You had tea with him. Two teacups near the sink."

John glanced back to the sink, and then towards Sherlock. Victor's words rang in his head. Sherlock's friends' apathy regarding their old professor, that wonderful man, rang in his head. And yet he had no idea what could've happened to him, a former professor at easily one of the best institutions in the world.

He intended to find out his story, before he made Sherlock understand that Victor, as Max had aptly put it, thought himself a burden. That if the man really needed to build his respect back of all things as Sherlock had proclaimed, he needed to be self-reliant first. John himself shuddered at the thought of such a devastating retirement.

"Yes, he told me that he was your professor."

Sherlock stopped his typing and looked up at John, "Is that all he said?"

John licked his lips. What else was Victor supposed to say?"

"He said that I need to hear the rest from you."

Sherlock looked away from John, and took a deep breath, "You've been very insistent."

"Who is he, Sherlock?" John asked, drawing a deep breath and glancing towards the second floor, where there house guest was sleeping soundly. "Tell me who he is. I've held out long enough, waiting for you to tell me, but I suppose that won't happen on its own."

Sherlock's expression was hard to read, which was not very unusual, given the past couple weeks.

"So tell me, who is he?"

Sherlock didn't look very unsure; John knew Sherlock wanted to say something, but there was something, something deep and dark holding him back.

Finally, Sherlock blinked and gestured towards the sofa. John wondered if it really was bad enough for him to hear it, bad enough to feel like the ground slipping underneath his feet. In his heart, he hoped their house guest was just a very old, very dangerous criminal, apart from being a day-time professor. But the truth, he knew, he had _seen_ in Victor's eyes, was much more personal.

"That man is the reason I am what I am. He's not just my old professor, he's my first client, and I don't think I've ever been—or will ever be, for that matter—so intimate with any of my clients."

John looked at him with disbelief. What did Sherlock mean by being _intimate_ with that old man?

"You mean, you solved his case?"

Sherlock bristled, "Partly. I was about twenty four back then and. . . not in a very good state."

"One year after I was stationed."

Sherlock blinked, and something like guilt creased in the wrinkles around his eyes, "Yes, you were gone, and this was the first case that I had solved. But he and I knew each other from back at Imperial, before I even met you.

"Of course, the conclusion to which I brought the case was not very satisfactory, but I knew then, that yes, this is where I can make best use of my abilities. But he did so much more for me than that. More than his faith, that man is the reason I am—and will always be—with you."

* * *

 **And so begins the story!**

 **'I know Sherlock sounds a little cliche at end. But it's one o'clock in the morning here and I HAVE TO SLEEP!**

 **Please let me know what you think of this, even if you don't like it :)**


	2. Sherlock

Sherlock often thought that the holidays were a curse. He was so wrong.

The week after the holidays was the real curse.

Being the first day of the spring term meant that people (who, in Sherlock's self-important opinion, were too many to be bothered with) were back and were still reminiscing their Christmas. Which meant talk. About more people. About the loveliest of things like "he finally kissed me under the mistletoe! Imagine, the mistletoe!" and "I had two pork roasts!" and "gosh, I've gained weight!" and "OMG, I loved ice-skating with my nephew's cousin's mother's sister!" and other trivialities.

At the back of the classroom, Sherlock sat, legs outstretched. He had been sleeping in his dorm when Max had called him out, at Sherlock's own misinterpreted request two nights before, to at least attend the first class of the first week, and Sherlock, once regretfully wakeful, had nothing better to do than sit in class and stare into nothingness.

Not that Sherlock did not like attending class, in fact it was the next best thing after boxing, but he had been working so much throughout the Christmas that he felt like staying in his bed for at least the first day.

And so far, said day was going bad enough for Sherlock.

He sighed as people around him happily chatted among themselves. Sneaked his phone out to check the schedule and frowned for his already ailing memory. The first lecture, Mathematics 102 had been cancelled (the guy was in Norway, apparently), and so had been Physical Chemistry 201 (the professor was ill), which he had, in fact spent roaming around the campus with few of his classmates and catching up with each others' lives (which also included Sherlock not interfering in their conversation, and also included all of them asking him about how he had managed to stay in London "for the whole friggin' Christmas vacation, man!").

Not that their own stories had been that bad, either. Sherlock silently listened to the lives of people that were as different from his own as chalk and cheese, glimpsing into their activities from their own limited perspectives. Only one of them, Andy, had been on a jolly good holiday in Switzerland; others had contended themselves by spending Christmas more traditionally, with relatives and friends and believing in Santa just for the sake of belief. Max, with his single mother, weren't really much in the holiday spirit.

Very fascinating were the range of thoughts that could run through small minds like the people he was acquainted with (although Sherlock never let himself admit this, to himself or anyone). For all he knew, the only two people he fell inferior to when it came to the superiority of mind were his elder brother, forever dominating, and his mother, forever doting (although he never let himself admit that either; in fact there was a whole lot of things that Sherlock kept himself from admitting freely). All others were merely as dumb as cows. But family wasn't the only sphere Sherlock was to retain himself in. And so he let himself float around, in the outside world, soaking in what he lacked and what the "normal" excelled in. While he never indulged in discussions about thoughts and ideas and opinions, it seemed that his peers, those who he dubbed as "dumb" and "stupid", often did so. And those discussions, while similar but qualitatively different than what his friends were having now, often left him alienated and, for a few morose moments, friendless, for a lot of them were about him, behind his back, and almost never positive.

The first term had led to establishment of friendships and groups. Birds of the same feather flocked together, and Sherlock, to his well-concealed dismay, found this to be true even in university. There was always the school group; people from the same school, even if they had been enemies in their "past life", resolved to forget their differences and become the best of buddies. Then there was a girls' group; party divas paired up while nerds played the friendship/ogling game. Then came the jocks, and the potty-mouths, and the uncool and the foreigners who could never grow past the boundaries of their language and race.

In such a world, Sherlock remained, both by compulsion and by choice, an island.

Until Deb intervened.

* * *

"So, Debra was your first "friend", eh?"

Unexpectedly interrupted in his narrative, Sherlock expressed his irritation by letting out a quite visible puffy cloud of breath, "I've _had_ friends before. So then—"

John shifted in his seat, "How come I've never heard you talk about your friends? As far as I remember, I only heard Max's name, _Max is a pain in the behind, Max can't say no, can't stay the night, Max needs a superhuman to finish the report,_ etc."

"Well, you never asked."

"That's because we were only dating back then, and anyway, you're supposed to just introduce your friends, not wait to be asked!"

Sherlock made a sour face, "Do you want to hear this or not?"

John put his palms up in defeat, "Go on, sir."

* * *

Debra Carter was tall, average looking, not-so-academic, and Sherlock often marveled at the peculiar way they had become friends. It had all started the last term, with Sherlock having no choice but to show her his answer script during the mid-term tests so that the poor girl didn't have to beg around for answers. All in all, pity was probably the only reason, apart from her valuable ability to keep her mouth shut in most situations, that had led Sherlock to keep her as a friend.

Over his childhood, Sherlock had contracted an unfortunate habit from his big brother Mycroft—that of judging people by their intellect—or atleast that's what Sherlock thought how his brother viewed the world as: in black-and-white shades of the intellectual-worthy and the rest unworthy. This habit unconsciously prevailed during the fleeting first impressions that people put on him, and never let Sherlock get to know people on a level deeper than his deductions could go to. Often, as he grew up into his prime, Sherlock wondered if this was why Debra Carter had always had a special place in a secluded deep chamber of his mind palace. For she had, for the first time, proved to Sherlock that he could—that he actually had the ability, had the _permission_ to—like someone who was nowhere near him in the matters of the mind.

And, of course, others followed, but she was the one who had opened him to that possibility. With the dignity of a woman twice her age and a wonderfully free yet traditional mindset, Deb was easily likeable. Although he never really had a desire to share a deep connection with her, and was perpetually distrustful of her thanks to her quiet and incomprehensible nature, he could say, safely, and without thinking about her opinion about the matter, that he genuinely liked her.

Although he, despite being the genius that he was, could never figure out if Deb liked him back. Perhaps she didn't, because no sane person ever _liked_ Sherlock Holmes.

"My sister stayed in bed feigning headache," Deb was complaining to Sherlock, and it often was the case that even if they had Anna, a girl, in the group, Deb liked venting her daily problems to Sherlock. It often made Sherlock wonder, despite his claims to not care about others' opinions, about where he stood in her rarely-expressed opinions. For friendship and companionship were novel things to a boy who had previously only indulged in a one-sided love-cum-mutual-physical relationship. Did the glimpses into her life that she let him have mean that she trusted him, or was this normal for her, for everybody else? For everyone else but him?

". . . So she stayed in bed the whole day, and I had to help mother with all the house work. She does it every time, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, and _she's_ the big sister! _She's_ the damn big sister!"

Sherlock hummed to himself absentmindedly. That was something he could very well relate to: older sibling. But. . . not interested.

Andrew gave Deb a commiserating smile over Sherlock's shoulder; he stood 6'2 over Sherlock, who barely touched 6, "I've also got an elder sister, y'know."

"Oh, you do?"

"Yup. I just moved in with her and her husband. And I've become the official babysitter of the family," he sighed long-sufferingly.

Deb looked confused, _"Their._ . . babysitter?"

"Of course not for them," Sherlock interrupted, "for the kid, girl, 4 years, blonde, hates walking, loves makeup."

"Of course you knew that," Andrew muttered irritably.

"Which reminds me, there's drool marks on your sweater and fake nails at the back of your collar. Might want to check those."

* * *

"So Andy was pretty much always hung up on Deb," John nodded.

"That's unimportant," Sherlock said, waving his hand dismissively, "Anyway, that was the first day, pretty much no lectures—"

"No hang on, you said he's still in love with her. But you also said that he was the one to break up with her."

"Well that doesn't matter, 'cause they're broken up and all's good."

John did not like the vehemence in his boyfriend's tone. Sherlock and Andy did not seem to like each other all that much, even during the meet-up. However, knowing Sherlock, he knew that he wouldn't get to know about their strained relations until Sherlock chose to reveal them.

But then, he was Sherlock. He had strained relations with almost everyone, no mystery there.

* * *

But sometimes, sayings proved to be false, and sometimes friendships had a way of blossoming in the most un-obvious of circumstances. While for Anna and Andy, it was the usual enemies-in-school-friends-in-college scheme, the same could not be said for Andy and Max, who, had they been introduced in any other way than they actually were, might never have liked each other at all.

By twelve o'clock, only three of them had remained: himself, Deb and Andy. Max and Anna had both sulked their way to Stat Mech. While in his circle of guy friends, Andy was quite loud and brash with his language. But with Deb and Sherlock, both of who talked less and were comfortable in the presence of their own self, Andy became self-conscious and quiet too, unable to talk about just anything. Although it could be said to be the stirrings of a life-long crush, Deb was blind to such blatantly obvious signals.

Sherlock was busy with his phone, while Deb remained quiet, blinking into nothingness and munching on fruits and toast. Andy paced up and down impatiently, waiting for his best friend to arrive, for someone to start talking. And it was only after a couple of rounds of war in a MMO game that Max and Anna finally arrived and Andy decided to dump the game progress to attack him, arm around neck in a bear hug as Andy tugged at Max's unshaven face, pulling out a few hairs.

"Ow, you cock!" was the first thing that came from Max's otherwise restrained mouth, while Anna backed away at once from the friendly violence. Sherlock looked up, not interested, and back to his phone.

"You little nigga mother-fucker," Andy strangled him in his own peculiar way of showing his affection towards his best friend, which, peculiarly enough, Max never seemed to mind all that much, "Look at the time, you dick!"

Deb laughed, a small laugh that was a cross between amusement and disapproval at the same time. But however it was, it was enough confirmation to Andy that he could impress her by simply strangling Max.

"Had a—ow!—class! Not been sitting idle—fuck—like you."

Never the one to interfere, Sherlock remained blissfully immersed in his phone—that was, until Anna joined him with that tooth-rotting sweet-and-trying-to-be-seductive smile. Last month, before the Christmas season, Sherlock had told her that a smile looked much better on a girl than a pout just to shut her up from blabbering all about her "cute" selfies. Never had he known that she would come up with newer, more frightening smiles in the hope that he would fall in love with one of them and eventually, with her.

* * *

John gave him the look, "You're not serious."

Sherlock gave a disdainful chuckle, "She'd have stayed a couple of days more if you had so much as smiled at her that day."

"Anna's married, for God's sake."

"Unhappily. I was surprised to hear that, in fact."

John poured some scotch into his glass and sipped quietly. Never had he got the opportunity to open Pandora's Box as he had now. He could not believe it. He knew Sherlock for over fifteen years, and yet he felt as if he had barely scratched the man's shiny surface. Who knew what sort of mysteries and crimes the man had hidden away beneath? He was never the one for psychology and the mind-stuff, but he knew, _knew_ what PTSD had done to him, how it had changed him. Who knew if the crimes Sherlock had dealt with had changed him too?

"Why so?"

"She was crazy for men," Sherlock chuckled humourlessly, "Would do anything to get a date, he only need be a man and she'd melt. And after a breakup, would go to any lengths to make it look as if _she_ had dumped the man . . ."

John stared at Sherlock, mouth wide open. He had never heard Sherlock talk like that, and the unfamiliarity unnerved him.

"So, when I saw her, I understood," Sherlock turned to look at John, "The marriage was not with her consent. And for a woman who used to date like there's no tomorrow, well . . ."

"Yeah," John reached out for him, "I know."

"Although she is much more bearable now. Thank God for that."

* * *

Some say time could erode mountains of memories, others say time could heal heaps of broken hearts. For Sherlock, however, none of it was true. And it was easier for him to show to the world that it was not true for him at all, although in a different way than what was reality, in a way that sent a clear message to everybody that he was the only one untouched by time and its devastating effects. That he had no memories to be eroded or hearts to be broken. He processed, calculated, and spewed results. He swam against the flow of the stream, he skiied when the wind was the worst, he fought his _jujitsu_ master when no one dared to. The walls of his room were covered with whitewash and the periodic table while others' were covered with women and post-its.

Yet, each time his remarks and ideas and input went unacknowledged, each time someone refused to recognize and meet his eyes, Sherlock saw the destructibility of time, from how impartially he was treated by his class people in the first week of the first semester to how he was treated now, and only one thing reverberated in his mind: _They all hate me._

But, no matter how much Sherlock tried, hating back wasn't easy. Because then he'd be normal. And Sherlock Holmes was anything but normal.

Regardless of how badly he wished he could be. More badly than anyone.

"What are you thinking?"

Sherlock blinked confusedly at the ground as he was pulled out of his thoughts, and then turned to his right, only to be accosted by one of Anna's trying-to-be-seductive smiles, "Sorry what?"

Anna smiled, unaware of what was going on in Sherlock's mind, "I want an ice cream."

Sherlock sighed tiredly, "Then go get an ice-cream. Don't bother me."

"Get me an ice-cream, please."

Sherlock moved away a little. Anna moved towards him in response. Oh God, why could women never take a bloody hint? He looked up at Max, "Max, get your girlfriend ice-cream."

Max put on his best politely helpless face as Andy purposely missed the kick aimed at his crotch, "Why do you guys insist on calling her my girlfriend?"

As if Sherlock had never existed, Anna did a 180 degrees to Max, tooth-rotting smile on her face and batting her eyelashes in what could be called bashful just as rodeoing could be gentle.

"Because I am your girlfriend. You are my property," she declared excitedly in her high-pitched voice, standing on her toes restlessly as if about to skip like a bunny.

Andy threw a light punch to Max's gut, "Her property, eh? Never told us, you black nigga!"

"Uh, that's actually redundant."

Sherlock pitied poor Max. He was The nice guy of their class, gentle and patient, and yet the closest he came to having a girlfriend was being Anna's property and Andy's punchbag who got friend-zoned by almost every girl.

He got up and took off for the cafe, ordered a coffee for himself, leaving their side to get some alone time. It was tempting to throw himself into company, but he knew better than to let anybody close and take liberties with him. By some chance, he had _acquaintances_ , and when he looked at them from afar, at a reserved Debra, at a jostling Max and Andy, and an ever-flirtatious-and-immature Anna, he marvelled at that knowledge, something he'd not admit even at gunpoint.

The four of them were a unit. Four of them against him. Or was it?

His mobile rang out, unwelcome to his musings as always. He hated having a phone on his person, made him feel like he wasn't his own person. Glancing at the phone, he sighed. Of course, only two people made phone calls to him and this was the less unpleasant one.

"Hello, mummy," he drawled.

"Sherly, how're you?" his mother whispered, "Have you eaten something?"

Sherlock scanned the cafeteria. No one was looking, not even his friends, "Yeah, I am."

There was a knowing pause, "Uh-huh. What are you eating?"

"If you called me to ask me about my diet, I—"

"Oh, you shut up, Sherlock Holmes. Don't give me your brother's attitude when you don't know a thing about the world! This is _the_ time for eating! If you don't eat now, when will you then, huh?"

Sherlock heaved a long suffering sigh. Trust his mother to scold him about eating, "Mummy—"

"You have that tournament in less than a week, my child! You have to eat properly," she sighed on the phone, "Tell me there's atleast some chicken in your "food". Oh good heavens, you and your vegetarian nonsense. I think I shall come up there and—"

"Good Lord, mummy!" Sherlock seethed through clenched teeth, "I don't—"

There was a loud, threatening sound in the background. Sherlock's irritation skid to a halt at that sound while his heart sped up, "What was that, mummy?"

"Oh nothing," his mother gave him her best laugh, "just your father."

Sherlock did another take at Max and Andy. He knew that his mummy's best laugh was also her fake laugh. She was never really happy enough to give them her best laugh at home.

"Where's Mycroft?"

"Sherly, I—"

Her words were cut off by the sound of breaking china in the background. Sherlock drank the hot coffee in one sip and hurried out of the cafeteria towards his dorms. Oh, fuck the Bingham fluid models. He could do them later. He could feel Anna's eyes on him, following his stride. Thankfully she didn't come after him.

"Mummy, listen to me very carefully. Get out of there from the backyard. Go to Mrs. Robinson's till he leaves. I'll come there by the evening train and sort it all—"

"Sherlock!" His mother's whispers came intermittently. She had probably locked herself in her room, "You bloody well do better than leave the campus. Anyway, he doesn't talk. He just comes here to—"

Her voice was cut off by a loud voice, "Lorraine!"

Sherlock's blood stood still in his heart. Mind made up, he slipped into his room and opened the lid of the laptop in one smooth move, "Stay shut, mummy. He mustn't know you're there."

Phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, he clicked away furiously. The next train to Birmingham, the next he could take, was at 3:35 from Euston.

"Sherly, I can hear the sounds," his mother's voice came trembling, "You close your laptop right away."

"Lorraine!" Sherlock's father's voice came from the background, "I asked for those files yesterday! Why are they not on my desk _yet_?"

Sherlock frowned. Files _yesterday_? He had been staying? Where was Mycroft? His father was never home if either Mycroft or Sherlock were there.

"Mummy, you didn't tell me—"

"Sherly, I'm going downstairs," there was a quiet, cold acceptance in her voice. She sounded dreadful, as if she knew she was going to her death, "You take care, honey. I'll handle things here. For my sake, don't come home, and don't tell Mikey about this. We're meeting next Tuesday anyway, aren't we?"

"Lorraine!"

"Mummy!"

The dial tone answered him back.

Sherlock let the phone slip from between his tired fingers. His eyes were glued to his laptop screen. He only had to press "confirm" and he'd be on a train home in less than two hours.

His phone lit up again, and he scrambled for it, only to find an SMS from Max telling him that the lab from 2.30 was on. And Sherlock wasn't sure if he was in the mood.

* * *

"But—"

"I know what you're thinking," Sherlock was looking at him carefully, one hand outstretched towards John, palm down, "and it is right. But it was not always so."

John frowned. Sherlock's parents now, they were positively inseparable. When she talked, he gazed at her as if he hadn't seen her in ages. Whenever she sat down for dinner, he made it sure to rush and pull out the chair for her, sometimes ending up wheezing out of breath due to the sudden exertion. He opened doors for her, smiled joyfully whenever she looked at him. He treated her as if she was the Queen of England.

John sighed. Who was he living with, who was he planning to spend his life with? "You've never told me about this."

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find. Matthew 7:7."

John gave him The Look, "So you know the Bible by heart too? Or should I have asked you that as well?"

"Only this one," Sherlock admitted sheepishly, "Mummy always chanted it."

"And I imagine you inherited the habit from her."

"Don't be silly. This is the first time I've said it, John."

"It's not silly, Sherlock," John's eyelids were drooping, a result of staying awake late last night. He felt so tired already, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the whole thing through to the end, "I feel like I know nothing about you. Fine, I know some things in your past might be hurtful—"

"Oh, for God's sake!"

"—I thought you trusted me enough."

Sherlock looked at him, cool, guarded. Oh, how could he look so normal? There was this old professor that Sherlock had (probably still has) a crush on? Fine. Sherlock had friends he had never met? Fine. Sherlock's father was an abusive spouse? Not. Fine.

In an even voice, Sherlock spoke, "I trust you." John looked beyond, and beyond that facial mask, John wanted to see the frightened 21-year old who was doing everything he could to keep his expression flat.

He found none.

He rose from the sofa. Did he not deserve the truth? Or did Sherlock think he was so fragile that he couldn't accept the truth?

Sherlock's puzzled voice rang out, "Where are you going?"

John walked to the kitchen, set the tea in the kettle and breathed heavily, back towards Sherlock, face reflecting against the mirroring steel. Sherlock was a blurry lump on a cluttered sofa. He wondered whether he was making a mistake, hearing this.

Fuck that. He could hear this. He could hear this and still love Sherlock at the end of it all.

With great restraint, he said, "Go on. I'm listening."

In a few moments, Sherlock was behind him, arms around John's waist, touch of his fingertips so sensitizing, even through cloth and vest. And those fingers would withdraw and John would be drawn to them like paper bits to the glass rod. To top it off with Sherlock's sly little smile, and it was all that took away the last of John's restraint to throw himself at Sherlock, at his lips, his chest, his groin, rubbing against it like a horny teenager, oh, _ohh_ , yes, angst always did make John so horny. Sherlock pressed their groins together, just as John did, and they both let out dual exclamations of pleasure. Kisses were harder to snatch, so John let his fall on Sherlock's column-like neck. Veins and tendons and muscles were all a blur in the frenzy whenever John felt Sherlock's throat vibrate with every moan that escaped . . .

"Turn off the bloody knob," he whispered in Sherlock's ear, "or we gonna catch fire."

Sherlock's desperate hands seemed to strike against a metallic surface, striking down a plastic container, overturning several others before the knob was closed off.

"Believe me, John," Sherlock's mouth was wide open and the sound of his voice came in sporadic bursts, like a bad transmission, "I do trust you."

* * *

"It took father a heart attack to finally fall in love with my mother. Before that, he was in a perpetual state of instability. When he married my mother, he worked with the UN. That was till I came. After that, the Cycle began."

John nodded. He loved the post-coital Sherlock because of his child-like talkative nature. However, today, their discussion was far too serious to recall all the fun they usually had after sex.

He turned to gaze at Sherlock lying beside him, pale ghostly skin with pink blood gushing underneath, taut over his collarbones and John was the only one who touched it like he owned it. Sherlock's eyes were fixed on the ceiling, right above them, where their house guest was, and John was struck with the possibility that even Victor and Sherlock might have once had what they had now. He was never all that affectionate after sex, but he suddenly found himself having a newfound reservation about touching his boyfriend.

There was the sound of water flushing outside the room, and John stole a look at Sherlock, knowing very well the person outside their room, the room where they had just had sex. John had almost forgotten that Victor was still in the house.

"Your father worked at the UN? As in . . . United Nations?"

Sherlock turned to observe him, "You seem surprised."

John smirked, "Well, who could have guessed that Mycroft followed his father into international politics?"

Sherlock grinned, "Don't ever let him mention this. He likes to brag. They, um . . . used to live in Geneva before I was born; he worked at the headquarters during the Cold War. Tedious. Father became much interesting later."

John smiled to himself. Typical Sherlock. If there even could be such a thing as "typical" about Sherlock.

"By the way John, I just remembered. How come you've never told me much about Afghanistan?"

John stilled, rigid. The most he'd talked about the war against Taliban was with Ella. Sherlock had never probed him, never even asked him about it all: when he used to have nightmares, Sherlock would only hold him, wouldn't caress, wouldn't squeeze, would utter not a word and or sound except those from John himself. The most Sherlock had referred to the war was his wound and his dual identity.

And he found himself chuckling at his hypocritical answer.

"Well, you've never asked."

* * *

Dinner was always a solemn affair at 221B Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had long given up trying to convince John Watson that food was not very important unless one was very, very hungry. Fluids like water and juice could suffice splendidly. But John was an old-fashioned, disciplined man. According to him, dinner with family was not just a time for eating, but for bonding, for sharing what happened throughout the day. And then Sherlock would point out that talking and eating did not go hand in hand but ultimately John Watson and Sherlock Holmes would end up eating and talking and chuckling and it would become the customary happy ending that all teenage girls loved.

However, John threw a wrench into Sherlock's routine by declaring that Victor should dine with them.

Sherlock looked at him curiously, then suspiciously, and then started shaking his head, "I—I don't think he'd—"

"He's lonely, Sherlock. At his age, he needs people around him. He should've been with his kids and grandkids, not . . . here."

"Fine, then you dine with him," he declared, "I can't waste my precious time for _dinner_."

"Can you possibly imagine how awkward it's going to be for me?" John shot back, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Then maybe you shouldn't. If it's awkward, then why even suggest?"

"Just because it's awkward doesn't mean I have to avoid it!"

Sherlock's silver eyes assessed him, as if he had just found the criminal but was still confused about his motive, "You've been unwelcome to his presence from the start. Why start amends now?"

John kept silent. Victor had pleaded him, asked him for something that was in the interests of all three of them. Sherlock couldn't know.

"What's the matter with you?" Sherlock demanded, "What do you have to gain from this? 's trust? Absolution? Some semblance of normalcy?"

John heaved a tired sigh, and began serving Victor's portions to be taken upstairs by Sherlock, "Okay. I'll let it go. No dinner with Mr. Trevor."

* * *

A sharp knock startled Sherlock out of his reverie. Muttering a silent curse, he turned to look at the door. The shadow underneath was familiar, yet Sherlock was wary. The last time he had opened the door without checking who was calling for him had resulted in a superficial head injury, painful nonetheless.

It was Max.

Sherlock shut down the computer, but couldn't shake off the feeling of premonition in his mind. Oh, he should've gone home for the holidays. The last he saw of his mother was just before the 3 week Christmas break had begun. But he had his work. He couldn't leave his work. No one could separate him from his work. Simple as that.

"What's the matter?" Sherlock called out, "I told you to call out if it was you."

"How did you know it was me?"

"Seriously?"

Max sighed outside the door, "Fine. Come fast, Sherlock. It's 2:20 now."

He contemplated not going, but then let the idea pass. His mother knew where to hide just in case his father got too angry. Going over there would only make things worse. If Sherlock had learnt anything in his experience of life, he knew that if he went there, his mother would suffer more than if he didn't go.

But she'd . . .

No, he made up his mind. His mother was clever. She could handle it.

And what if she couldn't?

His phone lit up with a message in their messenger group was clear. Lab from 2:30.

"Uh, you go, I'll come later!"

"I've heard this professor doesn't like latecomers, so come fast, okay? I'm gonna leave."

Yeah, what professor doesn't hate latecomers, bunch of hypocrites, he thought. Most of the people in the world were, in fact. It was after all, easier to think and speak about the right thing than to do it.

And the right thing was often the hardest to do.

* * *

By the time Sherlock reached the organic lab, which was, for some reason, in the Chemical Engineering department, the professor was already inside. An attractive, tall and lean man, in a high neck red jumper and white trousers that screamed of Tube and overuse. He was clean-shaven, and his jet black hair was neat and pristine, and for a moment, Sherlock couldn't help but feel self-conscious about his own unruly curls. He hadn't started talking yet, but nothing seemed to be the matter with him, for he was not the type to heed time and routine. If he were, he'd be checking the time continuously, which was well past 2:45 pm.

Instead, he was looking at all the kids around and smiling, the rare sort of contented smile that just didn't suit a chemistry professor. But he was, and Sherlock couldn't help but keep looking. The guy looked happy, genuinely happy; and even with his black wooden-framed glasses, Sherlock could see the twinkle in his soft brown eyes.

* * *

"Oh," John smirked, " _oh_."

Sherlock sent him the weirdest look, but nothing new for John, "So that's your new plan, is it? Shipping Mr. Trevor and I."

John burst into full-blown laughter at this stage, "When I've spent half my life with you, it sure is funny to hear _you_ describe someone having _twinkling eyes_."

Sherlock actually looked embarrassed, and it was a look John adored, "Do you want to hear this or not?"

"No. I'd actually rather tease you until you're so sick of me that you would take that case that scored 3 out of 10 in that bloody ridiculous system of yours."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"And you were self-conscious of your hair! It's too damn sexy to be ashamed of, if anyone asked me."

Sherlock looked down at his lap, a dimple on his left cheek and a small shy heart-melting smile of pleasure, "Thank you. Now may I continue? I dislike being interrupted, even for compliments."

* * *

Their professor then suddenly turned in his direction, where Sherlock had been hiding behind the rack of chemicals, and made a sort-of excited 'come here' gesture at them. Sherlock tried not to roll his eyes. There was nothing to be excited about. He knew all the tests, all the protocols. He'd be learning nothing new here, and yet he had to be here, for attendance and other tedious things that were a requisite for promotion to the next term. Last term, he had skipped all his inorganic lab sessions, and later, Mycroft had had to suck up to the authorities and use his connections to propel Sherlock to the next term despite all the research work he had already been involved in.

Sherlock had then sworn to himself he'd never again put himself in a position where he'd have to accept Mycroft's help.

Sherlock dragged himself to the desks and slouched over his bookbag. He had never known that there was an organic chem lab in the chemical engineering department as well. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see a boy and a girl, research scholars in all probability, already working from the first day itself. Farther away was Associate professor Dr. Bletchley, the one he had assisted the last term over his work on lipids and membranes, until he had decided that Sherlock was far too intelligent to be an assistant and had kicked him out for pointing out the erroneous assumptions in his paper.

Bletchley met Sherlock's gaze and looked away, coughing uncomfortably. Sherlock sighed in satisfaction as the female research scholar looked at him pointedly. Women often gave those looks to annoying men, Sherlock had observed often. But as it was, he did not know what it meant, except annoyance, of course.

"So," their professor cleared his throat and addressed them, still looking infuriatingly happy and energetic, "I'm just going to keep this short, seeing as it's just the first week of the term."

Sherlock sighed. He knew this type. The instructor who _craved_ for approval, surely.

"First of all, organic lab is a dangerous place. Yes, believe me, guys, when I say that if you're not careful enough, you can even die in here."

The class gave a chuckle, some nervous, others disbelieving. Sherlock glanced at Anna. She seemed completely besotted with the instructor. Sherlock couldn't blame her. He was handsome after all, even if in an unconventional way, and he had a sort of radiance about him, despite his obvious age.

"Yeah," his eyes twinkled with amusement, "I don't mean to scare you, but even the most," and here he inserted dramatic and completely inappropriate air quotes, " "regular" of chemicals that you'll be working with are toxic, can cause blindness, even instant death. For example," he stepped down the platform gracefully and the class moved away to let him walk around to one of the desks. He grabbed a reagent bottle with an orange coloured solution and held it up to show to everyone, "this. DNP. Two-comma-four dinitrophenol. Anyone knows what this does?"

 _How can anyone not know?_ Sherlock thought, fighting back a yawn.

After a minute of puzzled silence and a couple of come-on-you-know-this looks from the instructor, Anna raised a trembling hand, "Gives. . . um, test for. . . ketones?"

Sherlock didn't miss the fleeting look of disappointment that crossed the instructor's face.

"Yes, you're partially right," he acknowledged with a quick nod and went on briskly, and Anna looked positively devastated, "DNP is used to detect the carbonyl functional group, and that's what you would write if anyone asked you that in your test. Anything else?"

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see all eyes turning to him. The instructor did not miss this, and looked at him expectantly. Sherlock blinked, feeling caught up in an embarrassing situation. He hated not knowing things, especially in front of people who pretended to know more than he did.

He met the man's eyes and tried to blink innocently.

"Alright," the instructor looked away dismissively, "commercially, DNP was abused as a dieting aid," at this point, he glanced at the girls, "because of its inhibitory action against energy production in cells. . . Anyway, what I'm saying is that I hope you won't go bottoms up on this vial."

The guys at the back guffawed loudly till it became increasingly obvious that they were not going to stop their somewhat fake laughter until the instructor asked them to. But he just patiently watched them, a Zen-like amused smile on his face till they were silenced into embarrassment. He continued like there was nothing wrong.

"And it's also toxic by inhalation and skin contact. Now this," he shook it merrily as if what he said moments ago didn't matter at all, "is an extremely dilute solution, as DNP is sparingly soluble. . . I hope you're all writing this down because I'll be asking all this during the viva."

Sherlock looked around himself as everyone rushed to grab their notebooks and pens just as the instructor gave a boyish chuckle when everybody was finished. His eyes were positively glowing.

"So," he craned his neck at those standing at the back, "I hope you won't be laughing at me anymore when I can make you do anything just like," he snapped his fingers, "that."

The class now genuinely laughed. Deb met Sherlock's eyes, and Sherlock smiled to himself, and then immediately clamped down on the light feeling. He had to learn to keep a straight impassive face at all times, especially when his mother was in constant fear of her life in his home. There was no point coming to the lab, even with all the scientific entertainment that the instructor was providing. He should've left for Euston. He should've . . .

"Anyway, and this," he went to another rack and picked up a bottle half filled with clear solution, "Methanol. A very common solvent. I don't suppose I have to tell you about this. Instant blindness and death upon intake, yeah?"

The class gave a low-pitched agreement.

"And also, methyl amine. Common by-product in organic reactions. . . Anyone there who watches _Breaking Bad_?"

The class looked disbelievingly at him. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"One of the chief ingredients you use for cooking crystal meth," he looked at all of them with a contagious sort of excitement that was starting to get even to Sherlock, before he realised what he was saying, "Oops. Must keep my mouth shut, sorry folks, don't go up to the administration and tell them that your organic instructor is teaching you all how to cook crystal meth, okay?"

The class burst into laughter, with some boys adding, "oh, we'll surely complain, sir," amidst the noise.

"So anyway," he continued after the commotion died down, "one thing you must remember, never smell a primary aliphatic amine directly, okay? Never ever. Get that in your notes, ladies and gentlemen."

Scribbling all around.

"Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that you've got to be careful in the lab. Gloves, lab coat on all the time. Anybody without them," at this point, his voice became deeper and gruffer, "and I'll have you thrown out of here."

Sherlock groaned inwardly. He knew he'd forget once in a while. Beside him, Anna let out a quiet moan, followed by a little squeak of, "God, his voice!"

He moved away for the sake of his continued sanity.

"And not just careful for your own sake," the instructor continued in that same serious tone, "You've got to think of your friends too. In fact, there was an incident, from when I was your age at King's. A girl was heating a reaction mixture over the burner, and the mouth of the test tube was pointed in the direction of her friend's face. And guess what happened when the mixture sprang out of the test tube due to overheating?"

Girls in the lab gasped at that.

"Yes, such things can happen in the lab, so be careful. . ."

Sherlock took a deep breath, involuntarily stacking the information in his mind palace. Inside, he couldn't help but feel that the professor was a little too ridiculous. It was just a bloody lab session. How could someone be so excited over teaching a bunch of stupid undergrads that his class people were?

As the instructor went on and on about what Sherlock already knew: an overview of the tests they were going to perform, safety instructions and everything, Sherlock set to figure the man out. He was obviously old, for he had greying hair in his temples, and he probably was the biggest nerd Sherlock had ever met (and that was an achievement in itself). His best guess was 45, straight, probably married and content with half-a-dozen kids and a couple of published papers per year.

And with the magical ability to make the best men forget their worries once in a while. Sherlock found that he hadn't thought of his mother since 15 minutes ago. How did he do that? It was not as if he didn't know what was being said.

Sherlock judged by intellect, and not passion. The professor, however, had passed both.

When the class was near completion, Sebastian Wilkes, _douchebag arrogantus,_ spoke up, "Professor, why don't you just hand out photocopies of the lab sheet?"

That made the instructor go from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Sherlock never thought he had ever paid so much attention to any teacher ever, for the instructor proceeded to explain to a completely-nonplussed Sebastian Wilkes about why one should never resort to photocopies even though it is "entropically favourable", and that one should, in their time as a student, always resort to processes that have a positive "Gibbs energy value" because those processes make you work harder and make you tougher.

Sherlock could bet his entire life savings on the claim that Wilkes had probably never even heard the term "entropy" or "Gibbs". Feeling smug upon seeing Wilkes being overwhelmed by the intensity and the amount of chemistry burdened upon him, Sherlock decided that maybe the instructor wasn't all that ridiculous.

Or maybe, on second thoughts, too ridiculous for his own good.

And it was only back in his dorms that he realised that the instructor hadn't even introduced himself.

* * *

John sat still for some time. Sherlock had finished, and for a few seconds, John hadn't realised. SO it had begun. The man was so much more vibrant than John had expected him to be. Or was it because it was coming from Sherlock's mouth, and perhaps not the reality?

"What . . . happened next?"

"Lab got over, we got no hands-on. I was already near the engineering school so I went and continued my work with the fluid modelling—"

"No, I mean, did Vic—I mean, did Mr. Trevor not notice you at all?"

Sherlock looked at him, "What do you mean?"

"Well," John was the one to be embarrassed now, "when you said that he looked at you and beckoned to you, well. . ."

"You thought he'd noticed me," Sherlock chuckled, "This is not a young adult novel, John, where it is much along the lines of _he looked at her, she looked at him, and they lived happily ever after._ "

John understood. His suspicions had been right. Sherlock and Victor had had romance. So, on top of being considered a killer by his own daughter, he was also apparently a child molester.

"I assure you, John, getting Dr. Victor Trevor's attentions took careful planning and strategy."

* * *

Most people mistake the definition of field, when coupled with the concept of an electric field or a magnetic field, to be associated with the area within which a force acts. It's merely a consequence of how the human brain imagines a field to be, a grid or an area outside of which a force cannot act. However wrong the ingrained concept of field might be, it sort of makes sense, and this erroneous idea of the field is often useful for conceptualizing just how much force acts on an object placed within the field.

For Sherlock, it was so. But as soon as the field had disappeared, worry had set right back in. And this field had disappeared as a function on time, so that Sherlock remembered his mother's state only when he was leaving the CAD laboratory at nine o'clock.

Once safely inside the dorm, Sherlock refrained from texting and instead called his mother once again. She picked on the second ring.

"He's sleeping already, your father."

Sherlock heaved a sigh of relief. His mother's voice wasn't shaky, and going by the feedback, she was still in their house.

"Are you alright, mummy?"

"Yes, honey. I'm in your room, in the space behind the cabinet. Very thoughtful of you to store biscuits and water in your _cellar_."

Had it been anyone else than mummy (Mycroft, for instance), Sherlock would've sensed a hint of mockery for having a cellar for rogue pirates.

"Extended stays are not recommended," he whispered into the phone, "Mummy, you should get out of there, go to Uncle Uriel. You're not safe."

"Sherly, for God's sake, your job is to study and make the best out of yourself, okay? My job is to take care of your father. Don't make this any more difficult for me."

Sherlock bristled at the blatant sexism in his mother's words, "Mummy, it's not your job. You have a choice, and you continue to make the silly ones, despite claiming to be so clever."

"Sherlock Holmes!" His mother's voice rang out for the second time in the day, like a taut string struck with the wrong pitchfork. Sherlock marveled at how his mother still managed to retain that strictness in her voice, "He's your father!"

"Shh, shut up, mummy. He mustn't hear you. And where is Mycroft?"

"Oh dear, Mycroft's been away to the Americas for a month. He'll be back within a day or two, dear, don't worry."

Sherlock couldn't believe his ears. Mycroft hadn't been home for a month. That meant his father had been terrorizing his mother for a month. While he had been working as a shitty assistant for the entire Christmas break to a professor whose work was redundant.

And now he knew why Mycroft had not disturbed him for an entire month. He phoned home every day without fail.

"Mummy, please don't tell me you told Mycroft I had been home for the Christmas break."

There was silence on the other side of the line, like the one right before the climax. Sherlock's mother's voice was low and guilty and pleading, "He has an important job, Sherly. How will he concentrate if he spends half his time worrying about me?"

Remorse gripped Sherlock. He had left his mother defenseless in their home with a monster just because he did not want to face the Harrington family during the Christmas and had instead chosen to spend his break at Imperial.

"Anyway, Mycroft will be here in a couple of days and I'll be there by the 9 o'clock train for the instrumental finals on Tuesday, okay?"

"Yes mummy."

"Study well sweet heart. You make me so proud."

No words could make him feel any less worse than he did at this point, "Bye mummy."

* * *

"Harrington family?"

"Er, not important. They had a nasty son, Harry. Messed up my room, hid my pants, left the water running in my bathroom."

John looked at him suspiciously, "You don't bother to say what's not important."

"But this one is. Unimportant."

John knew that Sherlock was a very good, very convincing liar. But he was lying nonetheless, and this time, John as going to suppress his overly active curiosity, so that Sherlock could at least proceed at his own pace for him.


	3. Consulting Doctor

John Watson was a man of schedule.

Being in the Army after living in a strict, old-fashioned household had its perks. It taught you to sit down for the dinner with your family. It taught you to sleep by half past 10 on school nights. It taught you to adjust your bathroom time with three of your other family members, two of whom were worked from morning to 8 in the evening. It taught you to wake up to the sound of footsteps. It taught you to do everything one could humanly do without expending the schedule.

A man's backbone was always to be straight, John's late lieutenant often said. His schedule was his backbone.

But when John dozed off once again and was caught by the nurse snoring softly for the third time that day right before his next patient was ushered in (diagnosed with a rare form of tuberculosis that John was very interested in), he realised that there was a problem with him. And his schedule.

He called Sherlock before leaving the hospital. Then he noticed that he had left voice messages for him: more grocery, more milk, and something about another singular robbery in East London. And about not making dinner for him as he'd possibly not return home that night. It was the first case Sherlock had unwillingly taken since Victor Trevor had arrived—the first case in one and a half month—and once absorbed completely, he had abandoned all notions of the regularity of a home life.

As for John, it was becoming tiresome, coming home to just a cold flat and a near-stranger who had recently taken to pulling down Sherlock's huge collection of volumes and volumes of law, anthropology and solved puzzle books ("Putting my new glasses to good use," Victor had said, and John had smiled warily). While John was somewhat glad to see that the old man had finally something to do in the house, he still hadn't come to terms with sharing what was supposed to be his private and intimate abode with someone who supposedly had a history—and not of the _nice_ kind—with his boyfriend.

He replayed Sherlock's voice message over as he drove back home, a feeling of nostalgia creeping over him at the mention of singular robbery. There was a time where Sherlock forced him to ditch work over the cases and the adventures they had shared. He wondered if Sherlock ever had these thoughts. It was unlikely that he did. Nostalgia wasn't his type.

He parked his car (he took it since Sherlock had a reputation of leaving it behind at every crime scene till it ended up behind a tow truck), and scanned the street, a habit he had developed ever since Magnussen had staged his kidnapping. Wrapping his jacket around himself snuggly, he strode back to his home, first to check up on an ailing Mrs. Hudson and give her the daily dose of insulin before her dinner.

John listened to her drone on about the most trivial of things: of crap telly, technology and her pity of poor homeless children; of god blessing the refugees, Sherlock; Florida and old memories. He smiled when she smiled, he pouted when she sounded sad, and this continued till she chose to have her dinner.

It had never really struck John till now, just how many lonely, neglected old people lived around him: Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Turner, Bill from across the street, Victor. It made his own future seem bleak. Sherlock was not going to be around forever, and who would John live with once he was gone? And alternatively, who would Sherlock live with once he was gone?

Arriving upstairs, John found his pace arrested by a singularly pleasant smell, accompanied with the sound of frying and cooking. Had Sherlock come home and ordered takeout? Even if he did, it wouldn't smell this good. Had Mycroft come and made himself comfortable once again? That was most probable.

John sniffed the aroma greedily and put his bag on the sofa, his spirits considerably brightened by the prospect of delicious food, "Look, Mycroft, it's very nice of you to bring me food, but I'd be glad if you chose to do it at a location of my choosing—"

John's mouth shut promptly. Victor turned to look at him, and blinked innocently, only to turn a little nervous, "Oh John, I—well, there was no food in the house. I'm sorry, I was very hungry. Actually, I thought you'd be coming earlier and I waited for two hours, but . . ."

John groaned inwardly. He had forgotten that Victor could not digest the stale takeout.

"No, it's alright, Mr. Trevor," he waved his wrist dismissively, taking his shoes and jacket off, "do whatever you want, anything you want. It's fine. It's ok."

John turned his back to him. He hated being like this. He felt pity for this poor man, and yet he felt like he had to treat him with some hostility lest he get too comfortable, as if he was still the scum of the street. The silence behind him was uncomfortable, tentative. It made John want to turn, look, just to see what Victor was up to.

At any rate, he couldn't get any more intrusive, could it? Till yesterday, he had been only eating and sleeping here. Today he started cooking as well. Tomorrow he'd be throwing out garbage. All in what was supposed to be his territory.

John brushed his possessive thoughts off. He was no dog to be thinking of territories.

When he turned, he found himself under the inspection of Victor's wary gaze. He turned to the stove, where he was frying some peas and broccoli and chicken and . . .

John's curiosity perked up, "What are you making, by the way? It smells . . . ahem, good." Delicious, in fact.

Victor smiled kindly, "If you want, I can make some for you too. I'd just begun."

"Oh, no," John backtracked at once, "I couldn't. I really couldn't. I'm not hungry, not all that."

His stomach grumbled. Victor looked at him, a knowing tender smile in his face. It made John feel uncomfortable. But it could not let him say no.

* * *

"I don't have much interest in political machinations," Victor claimed, and John smiled inwardly at the fancy term he had adopted for 'war', especially when John told him he had fought in Afghanistan, "At least not as much as Sherlock. My grandfather was the Great War hero, or so my mother told me. But he did not make it for long. One day, my sister found him dead in his study, the word "Rober" written on a paper in front of him, his fingers clutching his pen," he almost choked on his chicken, gulping down water for prevention at once, "We assumed he was trying to write "Robert", but no one knew anyone by that name."

John chuckled, "My first case with Sherlock was somewhat similar. The victim was a woman in her thirties dressed completely in pink, and she had scratched the wooden flooring with her nails trying to write "Rachel", but she only wrote "Rache". Like R-A-C-H-E."

Turned out, Victor was a _really_ good and a really efficient cook. His workplace was clean while he cooked, and he transitioned from one chore to another seamlessly, as if he had been doing it for years. His age disappeared from his limbs. He seemed to know where everything was, as if he could smell the oil and the salt, like Sherlock could smell the criminal's trail.

And it was the first time John was sharing his dinner with the man.

Victor surveyed his own plate with great interest, "How did you know she was writing Rachel? She could've been writing _Rache_ , which stands for revenge in German."

John couldn't help but chortle at that, "Yeah, don't let Sherlock hear you say that. The first and the last time someone said that to him, he shut the door in their face, saying, _thank you for your input_."

Victor guffawed, "Hmm, I always remember him being unnecessarily blunt with most people. I could never look past his brashness, even if he apologised for it once a many times."

John frowned. Sherlock's bluntness was one of the most distinctive traits of his personality. Victor saying that he couldn't accept it was like saying he couldn't accept Sherlock's personality at all.

"Wanna tell me about it?"

Victor went silent then, as he was starting to be at all times he was asked to talk of Sherlock. John would fall into a terrible trap then: whether to ignore Victor's disinclinations and continue prodding him at the risk of being thought of as intrusive and annoying, or to fall into discomfiting silence and think himself a coward to avoid the very subject common to them both. But John couldn't do much. As down-to-earth Victor seemed to be, John always felt that there was something powerful and unapproachable about him. Perhaps it was just the professor in him.

"This is good," he licked his lips appreciatively at last, "the curry."

Victor smiled, and that was that. John thought the food was delicious, and he smiled at Victor graciously whenever the occasional look strayed in his direction. Victor would blink, smile politely, and go back to his thoughts. Was he thinking of him too, or was he thinking of Sherlock's return? Sherlock always saw him once before he went to bed.

These two were so similar, John thought. Victor was easy-going, but in a no-nonsense way. Deep down, John would rather sacrifice his fingers to frost than overstep his boundaries. If only he was Sherlock, if only he could pick apart what Victor was thinking behind that distant, melancholy look on his face. But as courtesy called, John never asked, instead busied himself with thoughts of work, thoughts of his schedule, of tuberculosis and enema and bills.

God, he wanted to chase some bad guys badly.

* * *

In the morning, when John emerged from shower, he found Sherlock back at home in his most domestic avatar, crimson dressing gown, coffee in one hand, newspaper in another. John heaved a sigh of relief. Or maybe exhaustion. Living with Sherlock made a man simply sigh at anything.

"Put back those magazines and papers, please," John ordered as he sauntered into the kitchen, "It took a long time to sort them."

No response from Sherlock. He was still immersed in the headlines that proudly declared the capture of the gang of robbers that Sherlock had been following.

Sherlock looked up from his paper and watched John carefully for some time. John liked this, being watched by Sherlock. Made him feel acknowledged, something that men rarely had the pleasure of.

"What title would you have given to that story, I wonder?"

John turned to look at him. The perpetual frown on Sherlock's brow, those crystal clear eyes careful in their attention, they were never the same.

John shrugged, "Haven't updated the blog in ages."

"But what title would you have given?"

John gave it a thought. He had the story from Sherlock, more or less, "The Red-Headed Leak, I suppose? Since that was the unfolding of the mystery?"

Sherlock made a _piss-off_ face, "You make it sound like a public urinal for redheads, you and your titles. Next case, I want you up there with me."

John chuckled to himself.

Later that day at the hospital, John logged into his blog. He hadn't written anything since 3 months.

* * *

The water, even in the wee hours of January, was never cold against Sherlock's skin, and neither did its current ever hold him back. They taught viscosity in physics. It seemed so contradictory that the retarding force should be the one to propel him forward. Take out the friction, and he'd remain flapping his arms uselessly in one place.

Calm, he told himself, swimming was a great exercise. It diverted his mind. It refreshed it. It made his mother so proud that she even managed to forget his father. Managed to divert her too.

It was his last lap. The only sound he heard over the water was the sound of his own heart. His mouth opened and closed periodically with his pulse; it never missed a breath. His coach at school had always tried to train Sherlock so that his entire concentration would be focused at the race, and not his competitors, but Sherlock couldn't help but notice. He was made to _notice_ things, after all.

The boy two lanes away was good, his technique wasn't half bad, and he had the advantage of more muscles, height and a more streamlined body than his. Sherlock only had stamina and flexibility and discipline at his expense.

The whistle rang out in the air before he could finish. To any human eye, it would seem that the boy and he had reached simultaneously, but Sherlock knew. He was getting slower. He was spending too much time hunched over his books and lesser at the pool.

By the time he had changed into dry, warm clothes, with his kit and the oversized pink towel on one shoulder and his mother on the other, he had already heard the same lecture for the third time. She had arrived three days before she was supposed to, and was intent on sabotaging the blissful Monday morning. Nevertheless, he was relieved that she had come to London, away from home, away from fingers that could bruise and hands that could hit.

"I told you this would happen! Heaven forbid you will realize that huge role strength plays in swimming the day they exempt you from the team. You know what they say, survival of the fittest!"

"I _am_ the fittest." Sherlock drawled.

"If only you were the strongest too. You have to eat, child!" his mother scolded, "There was a time when not even Nigel Stark could beat you at school. Look at that boy, how do you think he got those fine rippling muscles? You think he bought them? No! He eats and he exercises and he eats again! That's what you've got to do too."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. She was only one person in the world he could be truly childish with, "Of course, you acquainted yourself with him too."

The second week of the term had only begun and Sherlock had been smothered by the 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly and an audition which obviously had his mother flocking eagerly from their home to London to see her son in action. Sherlock's mother made it her personal goal to attend every single tournament, every single audition and every single performance of his since school days. Not to mention that her sons were a getaway from her marriage. She lived for her children.

"I don't need acquaintance when common sense can very well show me the facts, Sherly," she grumbled as he walked her to their little flat in Montague Street, "You'll spend the morning and evening at the flat tonight so that I can make you all the food you love—"

Sherlock groaned, "Mummy, I can't. It's 7 o'clock already, I have to work! My class begins at 10."

"Oh, you and your brother! Work, work, work all the time. I'll make you your food and I'll help you with your studies!"

"Mummy!" Sherlock felt his face reddening in embarrassment, "Can you please shut up?"

"And no, junk food is not food," she carried on as if she hadn't even heard him, "Yes you've told me a hundred times that your friend Deb gives you extra portions from where she works, er . . . McDonalds, was it?"

He sighed, "Yes, mummy."

"Promise me you won't go there again," she hit his biceps, and he recoiled at how hard she hit him, "That is not the sort of food you should be eating."

"You're no one to lecture me on my eating," he declared petulantly as he opened the flat door for her. A lesson she learnt from her husband, Lorraine Holmes had. She'd groomed her boys to never hit a woman and to always be the gentle when dealing with a lady. Sherlock hated the number of manners he had to remember whenever he had to greet his female relatives under the strict surveillance of his mummy's ever-observing eyes. If a girl deserved respect, he would give it. Why should he have to presume that she was a "lady" if she didn't step up to the plate?

"Why, I _am_ your mother!" she replied sternly, her grey-blue eyes the only bright things in the dark hallway. "I am and I will always be the _one and only_ person to lecture you on your eating, young man."

Sherlock's mood soured. That was true.

His mother's face softened, and she smiled sadly, touching his face with her soft palms. It really was wonderful, seeing how fierce she could be with her sons, and just how the _opposite_ of fierce she was to her husband.

"Remind me again, Sherly, when is your audition? Oh, I'm growing old with dates and all."

"Obviously. So am I."

She chuckled, "I think it was after your classes ended, wasn't it?"

"Tomorrow, 7. You'll be there?" He sounded the tiniest bit hopeful, and his mother heard it, she always did. Even though he knew he wouldn't see her while he was playing.

"Yes, darling. I will be there. I know the route; you don't have to pick me up. By the way, I have a surprise for you."

Sherlock knew his mother's surprises. She was incredibly unimaginative when it came to such matters, "Bye, mummy. Your surprises work on Mycroft, not on me."

"At least give it to your friends! Everyone loves an apple pie!"

* * *

His mother had made him eat his breakfast and bathe properly and it was all Sherlock could do to manage his escape from Montague Street by 7.30. He'd taken the Tube back to the hall, taken his bag and stuffed a sandwich in his mouth. He had worked till 9.45 and then had gone for inorganic chemistry, where the professor had already hinted at the load of their coursework and the upcoming assignment on TASOs.

Now, packing his bag as the professor dismissed the class, Sherlock felt sleepy. He'd woken at 5.30, and he knew he wouldn't be going to bed before one in the morning. That had become of his college days since he decided that he wanted to know what he could do with the subject he loved to study. His eyes had become gaunter, with near-permanent dark circles underneath. He hunched while he walked. His nose was no longer the way it had been when he had first left his home, a courtesy of boxing. His mother had noticed, but she said nothing about it.

And as the swimming season started, Sherlock found himself failing to hold together his activities. He missed practices, his fingers grew lazier on the fiddle, making music that sounded more drawn out and sleepy as days became longer. Coffee became his best friend. And no matter how much he tried to distract himself, he became acutely aware of the fact that nothing would fill the hole inside him. No amount of work or play or music or friendly banter would do.

"I saw him again, today!"

The high-pitched squeak jarred Sherlock from his thoughts. Anna's voice was not aimed at him, but at Deb. And Max. And Andy. Sherlock glanced at Max, Max who took so many extra classes and had the patience to fill so many forms and apply for so many scholarships and bursaries that Imperial offered. Max, who came from a broken home to study chemistry at his dream school at the courtesy of his community in Dublin and its Trust which financed his studies against all odds: racial, financial. Sherlock did not understand his struggles but the way Andy revered his friend in secret told him all he needed to know. _How can that boy even manage so much_ , Andy often wondered aloud.

Deb looked up. Sherlock glanced at her next. On her frown lines, Sherlock could see worry written clear as if in ink – _Will the bypass operation of my father be successful? Would he work again? Would he be the same again? How will I pay my tuition next year?_ Sherlock chose not to tell her that he knew, simply because she had never shared and had never aggravated him. Deb was a girl of dignity. He didn't know how he knew it, or whether he should even care, but he knew that she'd never speak if he so much as mentioned it.

"What?"

"I have been seeing him for the past week," Anna seemed to be trembling with feverish excitement. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock could feel Anna glancing at him every once in a while, but he couldn't understand why she'd do that. She'd found someone new and that was that, everyone was happy and he was rid of unwanted attention.

"You have a boyfriend?" Max's eyes widened, "Good for you, Anna."

"Poor Max," Andy commented, "playing hard to get doesn't suit you."

Max looked at him helplessly, "I'm being genuinely happy for her."

"No, silly!" Anna smacked in on the arm, and looked at Sherlock hopefully, but then pretended as if she didn't even know that he was there, "Seeing as in . . ."

"When Annabelle Sachs says 'seeing', she means stalking," Andy guffawed at his own joke and looked at Deb. Deb managed a laugh, much to his pleasure. Max was less comfortable.

"Shut up. You won't believe how cute he is! I'm talking about the guy in the organic lab, duh! I mean, I've been here for six months and I've never even seen him before! How could this perfect man have been there while I stayed oblivious to his existence for _six whole months_?!"

Andy snickered, "There you go, another teacher!"

"This one's different, I swear!" she insisted, "The last one was old and bald and awkward, and I only said he was cute—"

"You said the same for this one, dear," Deb looked more sympathetic.

"No, no, you guys are not listening. You know, I saw on Saturday too, and you know what? He was wearing those SAME WHITE TROUSERS! For the third time this week! It's like they're his signature, like Anna Wintour's hair since 1963! How cool is that! And guess what, he smiled at me, eesh! Imagine, he smiled at ME! And waved! _At me_! Oh my gosh, he looks so happy and lovely all the time, and _he didn't 'toodle-wave' me_! He did a full wave! Oh my gosh, what if he actually remembers me? I did answer one of the questions in his class!"

"You like him because he wears the same trousers every day?" Deb frowned, "Er, that would be the point where I'd _stop_ liking him, Anna."

"Hey, that's not fair," Andy piped in, "You can't not like a guy just because he wears the same clothes every day."

"That was not what I meant. After all, you wear the same jeans everyday too!"

Andy looked nonplussed at that, and Deb blushed dark at her own remark.

"He waved to someone else behind you, obviously," Sherlock couldn't help but cut in, diffusing the momentary tension. Max shot Sherlock a warning look of 'be nice'. Sherlock paid no attention. Being nice was a thing of the past.

"You're just being jealous!" Anna exclaimed, and oddly enough, there was something victorious in her voice.

Sherlock frowned, "Why would I be jealous?"

Anna's words died in her throat. Sherlock stood up straight, ready to leave.

"Somebody waved past _Anna_? _That is a disaster of epic proportions_!" Mimicking Anna, Andy putting a casual arm around Sherlock's and Max's shoulders. Sherlock stiffened immediately at the contact, but tried not to make his discomfort obvious. He had to be cool with these things, he had to not let these simple gestures affect him . . . but he didn't like Andy's newfound boldness after having saved him from an oncoming car the last week.

Anna turned sour immediately, "Go away."

"Professor Trevor is probably married and with kids, Anna," Deb yawned, "and I'm hungry."

Sherlock saw his opportunity, "I have apple pie."

"Aw, you have food," she smiled gratefully, as he opened the tiffin box for her, grateful for someone's hunger not for the first time. She was just about to take it when a thought crossed her face, and she withdrew her hand, "Wait, your mum probably sent this. And for you."

Sherlock looked at her in dismay, "She sent it for _all of you_. And besides, I've had my portion."

Deb narrowed her eyes, "Bollocks. This box is full. You couldn't have had your portion."

"But—"

"I'm not eating this. You're in more desperate need for food than I."

"Fine, cut it, girls. This is mine."

And before Deb could protest, Andy had wolfed the pie down his throat and looked irritatingly smug about it.

"Are you guys even listening to me?!" Anna's shrill voice rang out.

Satisfied, Sherlock sent Deb a victorious look before stuffing the box back into his overloaded bag. He got up, ready to leave, "We are, and I think you can have this man, Anna."

Anna got down too, eyes glazed, hope in her eyes, "I can?" His friends sent him a puzzled look.

"Oh yes. The professor's wife neglects him. Big time."

Andy rolled his eyes, "Oh come on. You cannot possibly know that."

"If you had a proper look at the hem of his trousers, you'd see. They were frayed."

"So?"

Sherlock sighed. Just how stupid could people be? "Oh come on! You two are girls. If you ever married a man, would you ever let him go out of the house without proper clothes or without ensuring that their hair was perfect and their shoes were shining?"

Andy thought hard, "His wife could be a feminist."

"Or working," Max supplied

"Sherlock's right," Anna pondered, "If _I_ was his wife, I would've ensured that he had got new clothes, let alone walk out in them."

Andy looked at him weirdly, shaking his head, "If I didn't know you, I'd have sworn you were a girl or a fag."

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching. Well, he was one of that. But they didn't know. They _needn't_ know.

"Are you serious, fellas?" Deb rolled her eyes, "Are we really talking about our teachers' wives now? What next, the weather?"

"Oh, wow," Anna made a happy sound and hugged Sherlock, choking the air out of him. He staggered backwards, but was nevertheless caught in her embrace. So much for getting rid of unwanted attentions, "He's mine!"

"Who? Your professor, or Sherlock?"

This time, she turned angry and hit Andy, letting go of Sherlock's waist, "Shut up!" Andy laughed, making minimal effort to dodge her and failing, "Count yourself lucky, Anna. I don't hit girls."

By then, Anna had turned back to Sherlock, "Gosh, you're so thin," she reached out to touch him again, but faltered, noting the look in Sherlock's eyes that said _back off_. Anna's face reddened and she turned back and began to engage Andy's hostile attention instead.

Deb laughed, "What do we have now?"

"Oh, I have stat now," Max took off his glasses and cleaned them with his t-shirt, "thank you for the reminder. And you have the hour free."

Deb looked at him weirdly, "How do you even take so many classes?"

Max smiled conspiratorially, "I have a time-turner. It's a secret." Deb rolled her eyes.

Sherlock was alarmed, "What's a time turner? I wasn't given a time turner."

They all looked at him as if he had grown a pair of wings in the head. Andy decided to break it to him, "Sherlock, it's a Harry—"

Deb kicked him under the table. Sherlock did not miss it, but he did not understand why she would do that, "Harry Elgin, Andy means. The Student Hub president, remember? Max received one because, erm . . of that scholarship. Which one was it, Max?"

Sherlock did not miss the pursing of Deb's lips. And the constipated look on Andy's face who was trying so hard to control his laughter. He was being made a fool of. And in a very unimaginative way.

"Oh, you can do better than that, Deb. I'm off. Shoot me a text if the class starts. Which one is it going to be, by the way?"

Deb laughed like a child caught stealing sweets, "Physical Chemistry: kinetics. You probably should come five minutes before 11.30, okay?"

Sherlock frowned, "Why so?"

* * *

Sherlock was 5 minutes late to the class.

The professor had been right on time.

And when Sherlock knocked and walked in without a care, only to glance at the teacher after he was comfortably seated, he found the latter looking at him as though he had murdered his father.

He was the Physical Chemistry 1C old prude—who was a famous tyrant known by his more famous faculty name NC—and after Sherlock's entrance, proceeded to ignore whatever he had been speaking before hand to insist that their class started at _eleven thirty_ , and _eleven thirty_ meant 11:29:60 hours. Not later, and most certainly not earlier since he was apparently "very, very busy" (and ironically the only professor who managed to arrive on time). He went on to complain about how kinetics wasn't his area of expertise and yet the department had assigned him to take the course, and how futile the Student Body had become, and that the administration were hopeless when it came to daily things like enough marker pens in class (apparently, he used one pen per lecture, or so Deb claimed) that or a working projector at all times and a Linux OS instead of the usual Windows in the computers.

Sherlock disliked such complaint boxes.

Then came 12:30 pm, Organic Chemistry 1B, and Sherlock could honestly say that professor, an old, olive-skinned guy with greasy grey hair who waltzed while he "taught", was the one most hopeless case out of all the other hopeless cases Sherlock knew. He spent half-an-hour on attendance, trying to read everybody's names properly, mispronouncing names and making the class laugh (because he had forgotten his glasses in his lab, he had admitted) instead of just passing the sheet along.

Then he asked the stupidest question Sherlock had heard in all seven years of learning chemistry.

"What is a chemical reaction?" he said, while executing his version of one-man waltz.

Deb instantly dubbed him old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy since the "wondrous" benzene molecule was all he could talk about throughout the lecture.

And Sherlock decided that he would never sit through another of old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy's lectures, come hell or high water.

* * *

"John!"

In an instant, John was up, the picture of attentiveness, "Yes?" He squinted, "Helen?"

Helen, the nurse, looked worried, "Are you feeling well? Should I—?"

"NO," John groaned at being caught napping again, "Anything the matter? Is there . . ."

"Um, your intercom's been ringing for ages so I just came up to check on you," she glanced outside, "If you want to call it a day—"

"No, it's alright," John rubbed his eyes, "Just give me five minutes, okay?"

* * *

"You're the only one I know who has, or ever had, a decent job, y'know."

Victor looked at John surprised, and swallowed his food, inspecting him carefully. John noticed. Victor was too cautious, perhaps that came with age, "Is that so?"

John chuckled, "Well, you know Sherlock, Mr. Trevor. He doesn't do hours. Then there's Lestrade, but he's a detective, so he doesn't count. There's Molly Hooper too, but she works at a morgue. She's got someone else doing the paperwork and everything."

Victor let down his spoon, and looked at him, "Your colleagues at work?"

"Yes, but . . ." John faltered. The right words just weren't coming to him. And even if they did come to him eventually, he wished he didn't have to say them aloud. He wished old, wise Victor Trevor would understand. But he wouldn't.

"Have you ever felt like something . . . you know, was wrong? With your job, because it was decent?"

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by decent, John. You're a doctor. You save lives. I can't think of anything more honourable than that."

John had to admit he was flattered.

"It's not the job that's . . . never mind. Pass me the salt, please."

Victor did, his long, nervous fingers shaking. He was being an idiot, telling Victor his problems when the man had so many of his own. While returning home, an idea had made home in his head. An idea that was not sustainable and not . . .

"As a teacher?"

John looked up, "S'cuse me?"

"You asked me if I ever thought that something was wrong with my job," Victor smiled a small smile, "Several times."

He had John's full attention, "Then?"

"Being a teacher is never easy. I always thought that teachers were those who imparted wisdom to kids. Wisdom comes when you interpret knowledge, and knowledge comes when you interpret information. When I started to teach, I found that . . . well, it was not so. It was only about imparting information. Kids of this generation don't want to be told.

John nodded. Kids of this generation didn't want a hell lot of things that might make them feel like kids.

"Being a professor doesn't come with the prospect of climbing the ladder, you see. Respect, yes, lots of it. All the kids call you 'sir' and look up to you, but back when I joined Imperial, I was younger. I did not crave respect as much as promotion back then.

John was surprised. Why would Victor even join a university when he wanted to "climb the ladder"? But he did not ask. He had not got comfortable enough to ask him about his life choices.

"It was a challenging job, no doubt," he seemed no longer interested in his food, "You see, John, the line between friendliness and professionalism often starts to blur, and you have to be _very_ careful not to slip," he drew out the 'very' lengthily, "Kids rarely think we're human. They think it's easy for us to see the distinction; they often _rely_ on us for keeping to the lines. It's not always. Unfortunately, we slip too."

John's food was stuck in his throat, reluctant to pay attention to anything else. He couldn't believe it, now that he found that his suspicions weren't unfounded. They had been dating when Sherlock was in university. Back then, John had thought he was a fun guy with a schedule as busy as the Prime Minister's, with weird tastes and no attachments. If only he had known . . .

It was not always easy to keep to those lines, Victor had said, unless John had misunderstood.

"So, you and Sherlock . . .?"

Victor did not respond. His face was flat, gulping down last morsels of his food as quickly as he could. John knew he was going to have to steer away from the topic, lest he flee.

"I'm not talking about those sorts of problems, Mr. Trevor."

Victor looked up, relief subtle on his face, "I see."

The tone in his voice was prompting, so John decided to continue with what he had been saying earlier, "I often . . . feel like there's something wrong with my job. With the routine. With the schedule."

"Oh," Victor frowned, as if he were hearing something new, "I can't imagine that kind of problem. Although my teaching job could have got boring over the years. Luckily, the curriculum changes with advances in industry, so I never had to teach the same thing every year. I never felt like I was sitting around wasting hours like those god-awful desk jobs, doing menial jobs way below my intellect."

John chuckled, "Seems like you and I have that in common."

Victor's eyes lit up, "Haha, that we do. I've always wondered how a doctor like you could find it in himself to ride off to war when he could've had a fantastic career here in London."

That was like a slap in John's face. Only four people had made that remark to him before—his father, his therapist Ella, Sherlock, and Mycroft—and none of them had sounded as judgmental as Victor did. He pursed his lips, smiling bitterly, "Well, we all make choices about our careers that don't seem sound to others."

Victor looked at him, examining, so intently that the look had John seeking his refuge in his meal. A chuckle later, he began in a low voice, "Oh, I had my constraints, John."

John could hear the unspoken _unlike you_ in the air, and had never felt so pissed off at any other human being.

That night, in his bed, alone for a second night in row, John pondered over his conversation with Victor. Turning over his words in his head.

 _I never felt like I was sitting around wasting hours like those god-awful desk jobs, doing menial jobs way below my intellect._

And finally understood his dilemma.

He needed to find a flexible job. Like Sherlock's.

A job without schedule.

* * *

When they came to the organic lab, however, Sherlock felt his stomach plummeting. There, on the platform near the chalkboard, where Anna's crush had been standing the first time he had seen him, there was old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy waiting to give them instruction.

 _Where's the other guy?_ Sherlock thought, surreptitiously looking around the lab and the lab office for him. He wasn't there, anywhere. _Was he a replacement? Or was he just for one day?_ He sighed, and stole a glance at Anna. She looked heartbroken, unsurprisingly. Poor girl, and poorer him.

"I saw him today," she sadly moped to Deb. Deb patted her shoulder, commiserating.

Sherlock tried to recall everything that he had learned about Anna's crush that day. Maybe he was a guest lecturer? No, that was unlikely, he could remember Trevor patting one of the guy research scholars on the back after the end of their lab session. He obviously taught here. Then. . .?

Sad. And here he had hoped he would not have to see old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy ever again, except for tests.

The class assembled around old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy as he began writing on the board. Sherlock did not bother with the lab coat. Not until they were starting with . . . he looked down his copy of the lab sheet, the Lassaigne's tests. Elementary, but it would pass the time, at least.

"Qualitative analysis of an organic compound," old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy turned with a semi-flourish and the platform creaked pitifully under his feet, "Never write 'systematic'. Write qualitative. Only," he turned to the board, and began to write in huge caps, "Q-U-A-L-I-T-A-T-I-V-E."

Sherlock squinted to focus on old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy's eyes and forehead. No, he wasn't drunk.

He looked down at his lab sheet. It was titled 'systematic analysis of an organic compound'. Deciding that the guy had a serious case of OCD, he decided to just ignore it.

He glanced at Deb and Max. They were actually listening.

"In the lab," he began loftily, like a Caesar-era herald, "you'll do Lassaigne's tests first, to detect," he tiptoed down the platform and tried to find his footing without his glasses to help him, "special elements in your organic compound.

"Now, Professor Trevor," he motioned towards the back of the lab, and all students turned to get a look at the man who had sort of appeared in their midst out of nowhere. Sherlock heard a barely-concealed squeak to his left. He did not need to deduce who that could be, "will walk you through the details and the how-to of the procedure. But I, _I_ will give you the theory!"

Sherlock tried not to linger on just how self-important that had sounded.

He observed Trevor carefully as much as he could in a second. The man's face was impassive, for a change. He was in that same red jumper and, as Anna had claimed, maybe those white trousers really were his signature. _Like Anna Wintour's hairstyle_ , he recalled amusedly. Funnily though, he actually seemed to be listening to old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy's bullshit.

Then, Trevor turned his head towards Sherlock, blinked, no change in his expression, and turned back to old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy.

Sherlock, too, turned away just as unaffectedly. He lounged against one of the desks, and then felt it was too low and uncomfortable for his back. Leaned against the wall, and thought it must make him look like an idiot. Stood straight, and felt compelled to change his posture once again.

Till he realised what he was doing.

He didn't like this feeling. The man at the back of the lab was making him feel restless, and he probably wasn't even paying any attention to Sherlock's discomfort.

Sherlock sneaked a quick glance to the back of the lab while pretending to adjust his standing posture once again. Nope, Trevor was patiently ever-focussed on old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy. Sherlock resigned to do the same, trying not to think that he was actually forcing himself to listen to a batshit insane old man.

Surprisingly, their so-called instruction did not take very long to get over, and they were called over by Trevor for further demonstration. He was, as always, waiting patiently, ever-present Zen-like smile on his face, hands clasped together, hair not combed and lightly sprinkled with chalk dust, yet neat. Every bit the gentleman.

Sherlock found that amount of positivity off-putting. It could only be faked, he was sure.

"Come here quickly, quickly," he barked, voice booming out loud and not-as-gentlemanly, "or there'll be no time for the reactions after this!"

Everybody hurried to him as he set up the burner and took out a small finger-length fusion tube. Sherlock took a secluded spot just to Trevor's left and felt Andy and Deb crowd up the space behind him. He met her eyes, and knew he'd have to entertain her stupid little doubts that otherwise required only a little bit of _thinking_.

"I'm sure you know what this is, yeah?" Trevor showed the tube up, "Fusion tube, because you'll be heating this," he shook the tube, "in the oxidising flame, temperatures upto 300 degree-centigrade."

The class gave a low moan of acknowledgement.

"Good," he said, "now one thing before I start with the test . . . the fusion process obviously requires a metal with low melting point like sodium, but for proper fusion, uniform heating is required. I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, this _incredibly_ simple test will prove _incredibly_ frustrating for you. Sure, in theory, you can claim, ' _Nitrogen's going to fuse with melted sodium_ , and voila, you've got a cyanide compound and a ridiculously easy ferrocyanide test to perform'. Well, everything absurd is possible in theory, man, but not so easy when you actually do it in lab."

Sherlock couldn't help but smirk when, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw while old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy bristling at Trevor's comments on theory over lab work. He did love a pissed-off teacher.

"For example," he went on, "in reactions with Grignard reagents, you've got magnesium in ether. Ether is your solvent. Pure, hundred-percent unadulterated ether, that's what you mean when you write on paper, 'Mg-slash-ether' as your reagent! What about actual lab? Well this," he pointed out a reagent bottle, "What do you think that contains? Pure ether?"

The class shook their heads. Anna looked close to becoming a puddle of goo on the floor. Her eyes were glazed, and it reminded Sherlock of those exorcism rituals.

"Na! There's water, adsorbed gases, X-Y-Z, everything! No man, ether means ether, not ether plus water or gases or acids or anything! I've always found that paper is the best solvent do to organic chemistry in. Everything is 100% pure and possible on paper. Heating in air at any temperature is sometimes even considered to be heating in pure oxygen, how convenient theory is, no . . .?"

Sherlock raised a critical eyebrow as Trevor caught his eye and trailed off, seemingly realising that he was digressing. A lot.

Deb tiptoed and whispered into Sherlock's ear, "What's he on about?"

"Anyway, my point is," Trevor did a last take at Sherlock and looked away to the rest of the class, "there's a huge difference between writing your reaction on paper and doing it in lab. Your sample _has_ to be uniformly heated with the fused sodium, and since your fusion tube is smaller than the conventional test tube, the usual test-tube holder _will_ fail here.

"So instead of finding a smaller test-tube holder and then trying to uniformly heat your sample like this," the class chuckled as Trevor imitated a clumsy man fumbling around with the holder and rotating his arm around the flame—which, in fact, resembled old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy's manner a lot, "making my own is what I've always found useful, erm. . ." he looked around and turned to Anna, who was standing just to his right, and spoke in a deeper, gentler voice than the one he had been using while lecturing, "could you lend me a page, please?"

For a second, Sherlock suspected Anna was going to faint. Deb was trying to suppress her giggles. Anna looked like she was trembling—more like shivering—as she tore a page out of her notebook and gazed into Trevor's eyes, as if pouring out all her devotion and adoration towards that man in that single gaze.

Trevor took it, smiling kindly and promptly went back to the class.

"Wasn't that intense now!" Deb exclaimed under her breath, sounding a little freaked out.

"White-hot heat, man!" Andy remarked jokingly. Deb slapped him lightly on the arm, trying her best not to burst into laughter.

Trevor folded the page into a long thin strip and wrapped it around the mouth of the fusion tube, "See! Twist it, and you can heat the whole tube uniformly. Because, people, fusion with nitrogen is going to be the most common, and also the hardest. And it can happen only _and only_ if you heat the whole tube _uniformly_ , and obviously there's concentration and a lot of other factors. . . Okay, before we get started, just one last question. Anyone with cuts or exposed wounds on their hands?"

A boy showed his hand up. There was a minor cut on it.

"Okay, so you will NOT be working with the sodium extract if you don't have your gloves on," Trevor ordered, "There's going to be cyanide in the sodium extract if your sample contains nitrogen. And cyanide . . . well, I did tell you that you can even die in the lab. But don't be worried, that's a small cut, it'll heal by the . . . um, next session and you can get a hands-on then!"

The boy did not look very worried in the slightest.

"Okay, the instruction sheet is pretty clear on the procedure, but I'm just going to do it so you know what _not_ to do. And all those who know everything, constructive criticism will always be appreciated. Anything else," he took a piece of sodium metal with tongs and cleaned the oil off with a filter paper, "you should keep in your mind that we poor teachers are the ones who're going to give you your credit at the end of the term."

Sherlock felt like that comment was directed towards him, even if there was no way Trevor could know.

Trevor's fingers trembled as he took a pinch amount of the sample in the fusion tube with the sodium and kept heating. His hand shook as he kept heating and made a self-directed comment about how people with lack of Vitamin B complex like himself were better off not doing sophisticated lab work. Sherlock could now make out his hands. His left hand. A platinum band on the ring finger shone in all its glory. He could make out an inscription, some initials, but not what it said. Probably the initials of his spouse. It was clean, taken well care of—a one-sided marriage right there. Poor Anna again.

It was ingenious indeed, Sherlock thought, the option he was using instead of the test-tube holder. It gave uniform heating without much fuss than the conventional test tube holder. He tried to keep blocking Trevor out as the man kept talking about little preach-y things from his own Uni days, generally giving everyone his boyish smile and Sherlock found it hard to not give Trevor a strained smirk when their eyes met. Charming or not, the man made him uncomfortable on the inside, and Sherlock kept his guards up, just in case. He wasn't going to be the friendly student who got along with the overly-friendly teacher, regardless of how sincere his efforts seemed.

"So," Trevor declared, "anyone wants a hands-on? Now?"

All of them eyed the promising red glow of the fusion tube sceptically and backed off. Trevor gave a silent chuckle and pulled out a random girl, "Here, hold this."

The girl, called Sarah, put her gloves on after a pointed look from Trevor. She was another one of those who had been very impressed with Trevor, although to a lesser extent than Anna, and now looked as if she would go to the ends of the earth to please him. Pretending to be in control, she took the tube from him and kept heating while he moved away, giving her the space.

"Now, twist, make sure heating's uniform," he'd keep saying kindly, while Sherlock would wait for something wrong to happen, for Sarah was being irritatingly coy with the attention she was getting, "or you'll never get the test. Yes, okay, you can go back to your friends when it glows red hot for the third time, yes, that's it, bring it over."

"Like that, sir?" she asked, as if the red glow wasn't exceedingly obvious. Trevor beamed. Sherlock inwardly wished for something to go wrong at that very moment, and then caught himself.

"Look at Trevor," Deb whispered right at that moment, "gosh, he's preening!"

"Forget Trevor, will you look at Anna!" Max snickered.

Sure enough, Anna looked comically murderous as Sarah stepped back into the group and Trevor began heating the fusion tube for one final time.

There was the sound of coughing with a, "Does anyone have the class roll sheet?"

Sherlock turned back to see old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy standing in the true Robin Hood style. Trevor did not spare him a look, and Sherlock found it oddly amusing, how Trevor seemed to ignore old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy despite the tightening in his jaw.

"He does," a huge, pudgy faced bully called Steve gave Sebastian a push. Sebastian gave him a nasty look.

Sebastian gave him a look, "You took 'em from me, you big cun—"

He stopped before he spoke any further. Old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy blinked at the rest of the class bemusedly.

"Why would I take it, huh?"

"I don't have it, mate! Go open your bag and—"

"Alright, enough now!" Trevor looked displeased, more at old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy for interrupting the peaceful lab session than Seb and Steve for fighting, "Just . . . go and check your bags, quickly."

When they came back, none of them had the roll sheet. Old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy looked sour, "Okay, if you don't have any, one of you can just go to the office, get one from there."

"After the demonstration," Trevor reminded sternly. Sherlock watched the drama, feeling somewhat irritated and disgusted that he had to go through two-and-a-half more years with people like Sebastian Wilkes.

Old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy threw Trevor's hunched-over-the-flame back an indignant look, "Fine. _After the demonstration_."

"Done with your fighting, eh?" Trevor spoke, looking pointedly at Seb and Steve while he quenched the glowing red fusion tube into the distilled water. Some of the unreacted sodium burst into flames in the mortar bowl in which he quenched the fusion mixture. The class gave a gasp and immediately flinched away from Trevor as if he had suddenly sported huge thorns on his whole body. But Trevor was always at peace, ever careful and unaffected, considering that he wasn't even wearing any gloves or a lab coat despite being their staunch advocate.

 _Hypocrite_ , Sherlock entertained himself with that thought, even if it did not match with how Trevor had presented himself so far.

"And that too over a roll sheet!" he admonished, "Honestly, you're adults now. And still pointing your fingers at each other like children. You all are going to be scientists, researchers, our future someday. Do you think we want our industries and our economies running on a bunch of cry-babies?!"

The room was quiet as a crypt. Trevor focussed his energies on a round filter paper—folding it in half, quarter, smaller and smaller . . .

"Never point your fingers at anybody! It's a sign of weak character, putting blame on others," he went on, "that you can't own up to your mistakes. Why are you blaming your friend? Accept your mistake; it's not going to make you look any smaller, and you're not going to remember this by tomorrow! It'll only make your friend look lamer if he still remembers that incident after a couple of hours."

Seb and Steve both looked embarrassed. And just as Sherlock was beginning to think about why he had to listen to the ramblings of a man when he had done nothing wrong, Trevor turned towards the entire class, filter paper still in hand, "And this goes to the whole class, not to only these two, yes?"

When Trevor unfolded the filter paper, it had taken the shape of an umbrella. Sherlock at once peered at the sheer ingenuity of it. Labs had always been taught theoretically to him. This was different.

"Okay, so anyone knows why I did this?" He showed up the filter paper.

"To increase the surface area for filtration, sir," Sherlock replied, eager to show off what no one could think of before him, "So that the whole filter paper can be used."

Trevor looked at him and smiled, "Very good. Now this part's easy, class, filtering and everything. People with open cuts and no gloves, stay away because the sample I used contained Nitrogen and therefore, this mixture," he pointed to the now-black coloured suspension filtering in the test tube, "has sodium cyanide in it. Rest of the detection part, you know, you've passed your Sixth Form, and honestly it's very clearly given in your lab sheet.

"Now, off to your desks, and remember," at this point, everybody dispersed away and he walked between rows of lab desks, watching everybody move, "your usual lab precautions: no peeking into the boiling test tube and trying to investigate something in the hopes of a Nobel Prize, no water to acid, and no. . ." he stopped in front of Anna and snapped, "Why ma'am, you are a chemist, not a doctor! Button up that lab-coat properly, or don't come crying to me when that pretty top is spoiled by the acid you use for detecting nitrogen!"

Anna was left reeling, almost crying. Deb felt pity for her and, as Sherlock could make out, an instant dislike for Trevor.

"God, I hate him," Deb stared after Trevor making his way to the lab office and threw his retreating back a hateful glare and turned back to Anna, the corner of her lip curving down, "Are you okay, love?"

Anna sniffled, "At least he thinks my top's pretty."

Deb looked like she didn't know who to hate more: Trevor or Anna.

Sherlock was thankful when their so-called instruction got over and he finally could get a hands-on . . . when he remembered the dreadful protocol of lab partners. Obviously, Andy had taken away Max, and Anna had paired herself off with Deb. There remained no one, he was always alone, and so he hoped . . . or not. The same thing had happened in inorganic lab last term, and instead of giving Sherlock a lone desk, the instructor had paired him off with _two_ other insufferable jackasses, making it three on their desk. It was one of the major reasons Sherlock had wanted to boycotted the inorganic lab.

He spotted a lone desk, far at the end of the lab, farthest from the lab office, and quickly marked it as his territory, hoping no one would be there. However there was no such luck. Apparently, Sebastian Wilkes was also the only one left without a lab partner after his stupid fight with his friend and companion bully, Steve. Surely, fate wouldn't be that cruel? After all, Seb hated him.

Trevor came out of the lab office after what looked like a one-sided happy chat with old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy. It was obvious at the first glance that old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy had a strong dislike towards Trevor, but the latter was either unaware or shamelessly chose to ignore it.

Sherlock watched the dreadful scene unfold in front of his eyes: old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy snuggled up with his mini laptop in the office while Trevor began roaming around the lab and found an aimless Sebastian Wilkes. After a moment of search, Trevor seemed to find that Sherlock was without a partner and, as luck would have it, Sherlock found himself in the amicable company of his most hated classmate and would have to stick with him for the whole term.

Sherlock threw Trevor's retreating back a hateful glare and turned back to his desk. Oh yeah, it was easy to hate Victor Trevor. He was like a walking magnet for bitterness with his shameless contentment and free advice. In fact it should be easier for any third party to hate Trevor more than Sherlock himself.

He suppressed his thoughts and turned to his beloved lab partner. Sebastian was, obviously turned away from him, hunched over his phone.

Although it was better to be anything but enemies with your lab partner especially when it was "a lab you could die in", he still had to think hard to resist the childish temptation of sticking a foot out in Seb's path whenever he walked.

So, Sherlock cleared his throat awkwardly.

And Seb sent him a weird look, "What?"

"Er, I . . ." Sherlock found himself at a loss of words, and then his eyes found Seb's phone, "You really shouldn't use your phone near chemicals. Some of them have awfully low flash points and can even explode, especially when you make calls or use your mobile data. Like you're advised not to use your phone at petrol pumps."

Seb made an ill-tempered face, "What's your problem, freak?"

Sherlock sighed, "I'm not a freak, and I don't have problems."

Thankfully, that made Sebastian lose interest in his phone, "Oh right, you're not a freak. Maybe you're a super stalker with your super creepy tricks."

"No, not that either. It's not a trick; I simply observe."

"Observe, my arse!"

"No, thank you."

"Fuck you."

That was original.

Sherlock took a deep breath, biting back his next words. He could not let his emotions get the better of him. He had learnt it early enough in life that he could not escape dealing with such people and practiced his composure like Mycroft did, thought of it and said it in his mind over and over till the disdain and the sense of superiority over such people—and hence the need to ignore such people with maturity—came naturally to him.

The more negative he was of such people, the farther he'd be from them and the lesser he'd feel the need to lower himself to their level.

Although it was sometimes very difficult, especially with people like Sebastian.

Sherlock assumed an air of nonchalance and clasped his hands together, "Well, just want you to know that you can go on with your . . . er, whatever it is that you do, so long as you don't interfere with my work."

Seb looked like he could kiss Sherlock's feet, but still managed a rude comeback, "Fine, freak, you don't have to talk like you own the lab!"

Sherlock contemplated murder for two seconds before going away to the lab attendant to fetch the sample and a fusion tube for himself.

However, when he returned, he was met with an unexpected but pleasant surprise. For Seb was . . . washing the test tubes and cleaning the apparatus and generally doing everything Sherlock dreaded about lab work.

Sherlock blinked. And then realised why.

Standing beside Seb was Trevor, ordering him around and generally being macho and dominating and far too stern for his own good. Seb looked miserable as he cleaned the beakers and flasks while Trevor looked like he was telling him off—not as cruelly as he had told Anna off—but still.

Sherlock approached his desk cautiously. Trevor kept reprimanding Seb in his own nerdy manner.

". . . No, no, no, clean them properly. Just because you have a cut on your hand doesn't mean you can't help your lab partner by doing the other chores! . . . For God's sake, that distilled water is never going to come out of the nozzle like that—apply Pascal's law!" saying this, Trevor grabbed the distilled water bottle and squeezed it till water flowed into the test tube. Seb kept gritting his teeth, once at Trevor, and then at Sherlock.

Sherlock did not know whether to be amused or whether to pity him. He decided to go with the former.

". . . And why aren't you working with your partner? Maybe I should give you a lone desk. . ."

 _Yes!_ Sherlock thought.

". . . But I will not. You must learn how to work together with other people, and if you don't learn now, it'll cost you later. Fine, hand's cut, but you can help him with other things," he pointed his thumb in Sherlock's direction, "it'll speed things up and you could leave the lab earlier."

"But he said—" Seb pointed an accusatory finger at Sherlock, and Sherlock realised that Seb was going to use his no-interference accord as an excuse for not working. But no sooner had Seb pointed the finger that Trevor began again, this time more fervently.

" _Never_ point your fingers at anybody!" Trevor said solemnly, and Sherlock had to keep his laughter in. He was full of glee to see that someone was talking Seb and his drama down for the first time . . . and despite how he felt around Trevor and how that man had landed him with a guy who loved punishing him for his "tricks", Victor Trevor was instantly a hero in his eyes.

"But he—" Seb protested. He looked like he could tear Trevor apart in two.

"Why? Is he the Queen? Can't you think for yourself?"

Sherlock doubted if he could.

Trevor then turned to Sherlock and glanced at the fusion tube and the sodium in it, "You haven't started the test yet?"

Sherlock sighed inwardly. And here he had been thinking that Seb was going to be the only one who'd suffer Trevor's wrath.

 _He looks so happy and lovely all the time,_ Anna's voice echoed in his head. He distantly hoped she was right, because he did not need anything to piss his mood now that he had been paired up with Seb.

"Quickly, quickly, start the burner and get on with it," Trevor spoke hurriedly, dismissing Sherlock, "The instruction took longer than I expected it to. Go quickly."

Sherlock was a bit surprised, "Yes, sir."

As soon as Trevor was out of sight, Seb drew out his phone and continued with it. Sherlock threw his back a look, and decided to say something more, and then thought better of it. He switched on the gas and lit the burner. It burned non-luminescent dull blue and went off.

"What the hell?" Sherlock muttered under his breath. He checked the air supply and the gas, nonplussed. The burner was faulty, he concluded.

"Ha ha!" Even Seb's fake laughter was irritating, "No gas, no class!"

Sherlock sighed, "It's not the gas, it's the burner. Idiot."

"Fuck you too."

Apparently many of them had the same problem. Sherlock glanced at Trevor, who was at a desk on the other side of the lab with two other boys. Apparently their burner wasn't working too.

Sherlock frowned. Trevor was . . . dismantling a burner and instead of just solving the problem and cutting out of there, he set to explain to them studiously how a burner worked.

He watched Trevor from a distance as the latter assembled back the parts with ease. A smile crept up his cheeks at the thought. He had himself never bothered to get into the details of the construction of a lab gas burner as long as it served the purpose.

"Go get Trevor," Sherlock said to Seb. Trevor on the other side of the lab did not seem to want to leave that desk and Sherlock had no wish to approach him.

"Sorry, but I don't take orders from a cunt," Seb bit back.

Sherlock browsed through the lab sheet unaffectedly, "Then stop being one and call him."

Seb made a face, "You go call him."

"I'm the one doing any work, unlike you."

"Yeah, holding a fusion tube. Congratulations."

Now it was really getting on Sherlock's nerves, but for some reason, he just didn't want to approach him, "Look, I—"

"And what do we have here, boys?"

Sherlock turned, still irritated and hot-blooded from the argument. Trevor was looking at the two of them expectantly. He instantly disconnected the burner from the gas and thrust it towards Trevor, speaking as fast as he could, "Burner's not working, sir. I was trying to see the problem by myself, but nothing's jammed and I checked the gas and it's just fine. Lab attendant can't fix it, same old and I can't find anything that that might be obstructing the air flow. It burnt at the beginning and —"

Trevor raised his eyebrows. Sherlock caught himself. Cleared his throat.

"Burner," he glanced at the little whites in Trevor's temples and then looked down, "Er . . . not working."

Trevor nodded, unscrewing the bottom circular disc, "Relax. I did not ask you to give me an engine check. The problem's simple, but I forgot to mention," he glanced at Seb and continued good-naturedly, nothing like he had been a couple of moments ago, "some of the burners in the lab have been replaced by new ones, and so, they're closed at the bottom. Open it up," he dismantled the burner and showed them the brass screw at the bottom, "just a bit and there you are. This is where the oxygen actually comes from. . ."

Seb gave Sherlock a this-is-so-damn-boring look. He ignored it. Seb instantly turned to nod whenever Trevor looked at him, which was almost always.

Sherlock simply hung at the back, unnoticed.

". . . See here, when you unscrew this, the little inlet up there," he upturned the burner's conical drum, "opens up, and you can regulate the amount of air like this. Yeah, it's a bit more complicated than a normal Bunsen burner but it's perfect for fusion and can get you higher temperatures—"

"Do we need to know this?" Seb piped up, and Trevor came to an abrupt stop. Sherlock hoped for another round of fighting between the two of them, but, to his surprise, Trevor looked a little taken aback.

"Well, not really. . ." he said, shrugging. He looked at Seb a little longer than what was normal, and then straightened up. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he changed his mind and went on his way.

"Why am _I_ the one who's always stuck with dorks?" Seb rolled his eyes and went back to cleaning the test tube in his hand for the umpteenth time. Sherlock noticed it, the way Seb seemed to be inclined to cleaning the apparatus whenever Trevor was around. It was amusing, he thought as he set up the tripod and making the makeshift test tube holder.

"Do you have any idea when we'd be starting with the quantitative analyses?" Sherlock asked him innocently, "Kjeldahl's methods and—?"

"Again," Seb murmured angrily, "why am I always stuck with such dorks _and_ freaks?"

"Because the universe puts contrasts together, you being the village idiot, and me being the cleverest person you'll ever meet."

Seb turned a bit, "Did you say something, _freak_?"

Sherlock gritted his teeth, trying to keep his calm, "Never mind. You know you can condescend to do some work at least instead of being totally useless to me. Just do the cleaning and the washing and—"

"Excuse me!" Seb towered over him, and Sherlock always hated the height advantage Seb had over him during arguments, "Do I look like your fucking maidservant?"

He shrugged, testing the efficiency of the holder. It was perfect, "Well, don't come crying to me when Trevor comes and tortures you again."

Sherlock knew he had Seb. Although only the second day, Seb seemed to be deathlike afraid of Trevor. That was so convenient. Now, he could do all the work that mattered without much interference, and Seb, out of his dislike for lab work could go and get the samples and clean the test tubes and generally be his personal lab assistant, even as childish and naive Sherlock knew he sounded to himself. Seb would never forget the humiliation.

He waved that thought off. Whoever cared about Sebastian Wilkes?

"Use your brains, Wilkes," he drawled, "You don't have to do actual lab work. Just . . . appear to do something. And since you obviously don't have the capability to do the real work—"

"Excuse me—?"

"—face it, Wilkes," Sherlock shrugged, "you're a loser when it comes to chemistry. I, on the other hand, know how to do all this."

Seb looked like he could tear Sherlock apart with his bare hands. Finally, in a voice loaded with loathing, he said, "You're one insensitive prick, you know that?"

Sherlock promptly ignored him and set to heating the sample, "Now, get me some fresh test tubes. I'm not working with those."

Seb threw him a dirty look, "As you order, princess Shirley."

Deb came over to him, and patted him on the shoulder, "Hey, you started yet?"

"See for yourself. Unlike you, I don't have a functional lab partner."

Another dirty look on Sherlock's way, but he ignored it. Deb rolled her eyes, "You want Anna? She's all yours."

Sherlock re-thought his words, "No, thank you."

"You alone are faster than the two of us. I haven't even set the apparatus, and Anna is hunched over the desk reading. I don't know what she's even thinking of accomplishing by reading the instruction manual over and over again."

Sherlock smirked, "Apart from the obvious?"

Deb smiled, "You know, I heard that the other batch got a really good professor for Orgo theory. And _not_ old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy like us. They're sharing their class with Polymer Science people apparently."

"Nice," he drawled. Deb sensed that the better half of his concentration was focussed towards the dull reddish glow of the fusion tube, and she walked away without taking much offense. Sherlock liked Deb for that. Thick skin was a rare thing.

"You know what," Seb suddenly burst out, and Sherlock inhaled sharply to restrain a curse, "Fuck this shit. I'm out. I'm not gonna pretend I know much. I'm just gonna come clean to that Trevor. I'm gonna tell him I know nothing."

"I'm not sure you could've even pretended," Sherlock snickered, "I don't even know why you took chemistry."

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Unless you've twisted the laws of nature to make the air listen to you, I'd imagine that you were."

But Seb did not retort back, simply took one beaker and opened tap so that water ran freely. Sherlock knew who was coming around.

Trevor hummed approvingly behind their backs. Their desk was the nearest to exit, and so he came over again and stood near Seb, "When you're done with your washing, you will write down the reactions happening in the fusion tube that your partner's heating up."

Seb nodded inaudibly. Sherlock really had to give it to Seb and his stupidity. They hadn't even begun using the apparatus, and here he was, washing them sparkling clean. Unfortunately for Seb, Trevor did not budge from there, instead taking out his phone and browsing through it. Seb gave Sherlock a pointed look, as if non-verbally saying, _look, even the teacher's using his phone near those chemicals_.

Sherlock sighed, "He's not making phone calls or using the internet."

"How do you know? Oh, let me guess. Your lame tricks again."

"The reactions," Trevor reminded Seb sternly, peering from beneath his glasses. Seb whimpered like a dog whipped by his master. Sherlock had never felt such unbounded glee. Sebastian Wilkes had always held a special dislike towards Sherlock, since Day 1. Sherlock, unwilling to acquaint himself with new people before his first week, had been surfing the internet on his laptop in the common room peacefully while observing the people around him when Sebastian and a couple other boys had come over to him to invite him over to another large group of boys—a group so big that it made Sherlock nervous—so that they could rank girls and talk about football. That was perhaps the only time Sebastian had been friendly towards him.

Sherlock had, of course, politely declined his very generous offer, but Seb did not know how to take a 'no'. There had been some unpleasantness, for Sebastian could not truly believe why someone would want to read about archaeology rather than discuss girls and football, two things that Sherlock had no interest in. Sherlock had finally cracked under the stress and had uttered things. He had kept it under control, of course. He had learnt it at school, how to keep his mouth shut so that other boys did not hit him. But what he said hadn't offended them; rather it was met with unprecedented delight.

And Sherlock was delighted too. At first. At the acceptance. He had been relieved.

Seb had invited whole of his gang so that they could listen to Sherlock's deductions. This time, the size of the group did not make him that nervous. And so he spoke, to his heart's content, and at first everything was fine. He was saying, and he was explaining. Bradley walked by Soho every day, the mud on his shoes was obvious. Alan's big brother Rickard was a research intern; Rickard's girlfriend was from Bosnia and she wanted to marry him desperately. Evan had got laid yesterday night. Aaron had never got laid.

And then it got worse. He told them the "what"s, and then they began worrying about the "why"s. Why did Bradley go to Soho every day? Why was Rickard's girlfriend so insistent on marriage, that poor sod? Why did Evan never get laid?

And then it came out. _What a freak._

Sherlock knew the word in only one context: hatred and fear and spite. But this time, he heard it in an altogether different and worse context. Like he was being made fun of. As if he was a fool made for amusement.

"I don't know the reactions, sir."

Seb's voice came a hundred times meeker than he had planned it. Sherlock barely suppressed a snort. It did not matter anymore that Trevor had partnered him off with Seb, so long as he got to see him talk Seb's drama down.

Trevor quirked an eyebrow, and he lowered his voice so much that it was almost a growl, "You don't know the reactions?"

"No sir," his voice was bolder now, "no ferrocyanide and thiocyanide and—"

"It's thiocyanate. Did I say anything ferrocyanide and thiocyanate?"

"—and no Ethylene diamine tetra acidic—"

"—did I ask you to write any of that?" Trevor's gaze was completely focused on Seb, careful and just a hint of _calm down_ in his voice. Sherlock chose that exact moment to plunge the red hot fusion tube into the water. It went off with a hiss, no sodium combusting. Crushing it to make the suspension, he dug into the pockets of his lab coat, redeemed the filter papers he had kept in them and set to fold them Trevor-style.

"You," Trevor signaled to him, and Sherlock stopped and looked at the man, "Slow down. You two are supposed to be working together. So listen to me when I'm speaking, and do everything else later. There's a lot of time remaining, there's no hurry."

Sherlock frowned. There was the ferrocyanide test, the thiocyanate test, and the halogens too. Was this man hallucinating? "Sir, there's a lot of tests remain—"

"I know, young man."

There was a tone of finality in his voice. Sherlock felt a serious impulse to blurt out to Trevor about the state of his marriage, given how much he had pissed him off, but for the sake of Seb's entertaining torture, he decided to remain mum.

"Now," he turned to Seb, "I asked you to only write the basic equations. Okay, what do you think the fusion test does to the organic compound? Just give me a simple answer."

 _It_ has _a simple answer_ , Sherlock thought. He had no interest in standing around and listening to such low levels of intelligence.

Seb looked at both of them uneasily, "It forms compounds of sodium."

"Exactly! That's all I was asking. Those big terms you threw around come later, and EDTA won't be used in this lab for titrations. I believe that was last term, inorganic lab."

Seb nodded, with just a little bit of confusion. Trevor expertly picked up on that.

"Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid? Chelating agent?"

Seb's less-than-confident nodding turned to real confusion.

"Okay. So what compounds do you think the fusion reaction would form . . .?"

* * *

"Are you serious?" John frowned. Sebastian Wilkes had always struck him as a banker to the core, not the one to be bullied by an Orgo chem professor, "I still remember those things. What was he even doing, taking that course?"

Sherlock chuckled, staring at his wine, "You wouldn't believe it. His girlfriend made him take it."

John gaped at him, "You serious?"

Sherlock sipped the wine, smirking.

* * *

As the lab got over, and they had their attendance recorded on roll sheet (that Steve had to get all the way from the office in the Chemistry building), Trevor and old-wannabe-obsessed-with-benzene guy (his name was Adam Coulson, apparently, and he was a visiting lecturer at Imperial) made their way out of the lab, and Sherlock found his attention wandering, finding Trevor, and following it, following him out of the department. Trevor did not even so much as look back. It had been a while since Sherlock had felt so . . . volatile, so entertained.

 _Apply the Pascal's law . . ._

He exhaled deeply, his thoughts oddly wandering into dilapidated regions of his memory palace he thought he had closed down long ago. The light feeling inside him was replaced with a heavier, a darker one. Sherlock refrained from dwelling much about it. It was like an itch; the more he scratched, the lesser he'd be at peace. He'd not seen Mycroft since the day he had set foot inside Imperial. Whitehall was less than half an hour from the campus, and yet. And he'd not talked to Mycroft since he passed his A-levels, regardless of the fact that Mycroft called him twice a week from a new number, sometimes even thrice. Sherlock could only wonder about the nature of his brother's mysterious job. He wouldn't ask him, he wouldn't talk to him, and he would never forgive him.

* * *

"Sherlock?" John called out tentatively, arm tightening around Sherlock's waist.

"What's wrong?" he murmured in his sleep. There was no fooling him, even in his half-conscious state. Sherlock could make out from his voice that there was something John wanted to say, and that only gave John more courage. He had been saying it in his head, but he hadn't got around to saying it aloud. He was afraid of how it might sound.

"Sherlock, you listening?"

"You have half of my attention, which is still more than what you can manage with caffeine, so yes and no."

"Dick," John withdrew his arms and sat up. He felt it was important enough to not voice it so cavalierly, in the middle of the night. If what he was going to propose actually happened, that would mean a radical shift in not only his lifestyle, but in both of theirs, and so he wanted Sherlock to be the first one to hear him out, "Get up."

Sherlock grunted. John slapped his back hard. His pale skin flushed a lovely red.

"What?" he cried out.

"I checked my blog yesterday."

A chuckle from Sherlock, "You still check your blog? I thought it was dead."

"Exactly, Sherlock! I haven't written an entry in three months! Do you even remember the last case I helped you with?"

"The one where we were tagging the suspect in the restaurant and you laughed so hard that the soup came out through your nose?"

John gave him The Look, "Fine, you remember. The point is, I hardly go with you anymore," he shook Sherlock by the shoulder, "I want to keep going with you, you prick."

Sherlock frowned, "I've never said you couldn't come."

"I know, but, my job, Sherlock. . ."

"What about it?"

"Well, this might come as a shock to you—"

Sherlock scoffed, "Nothing you say comes as a shock to me."

"Shut up!" John said, pointing a threatening finger, "I'm thinking of quitting my hospital job . . ."

No sooner had he said it that Sherlock turned to him, mysteriously roused from his sleep, looking at him as if he were Santa on Christmas, "Oh, the good news, finally! And no, not a shocker. I knew you were going to do it eventually—"

". . . and, well er, I'd like to open a private practice."

John waited for Sherlock's reaction, or lack thereof. Sherlock's enthusiasm had faded away as quickly as it had come. It created a vacuum that made John feel like he had to fill with words and explanations: what he'd been feeling these past weeks, the wisdom Victor had offered, unbeknownst.

"It's just that I feel like my time is wasted in that hospital. And it's not the same every day. Sometimes, the days crawl by and there's so few patients. And other times, they come flooding like the bloody refugees. Sometimes I get these rare cases of—a couple of days ago, a fourteen year old boy came to me suffering from a very rare case of Sickle Cell and I really wanted to help him but he's been assigned to someone else. God, I know I'm a doctor and I shouldn't say such things, but . . . I want to choose my patients, like you choose your clients.

Sherlock still stared at him, too dumb for the brain between his ears, mouth slightly open, pink tongue just visible.

"Sherlock, I—I can't do a 9 to 5! I want to be available for only so long as my patients are available. And I want to choose who I'm going to be available for. And the rest of the time, I want to solve crimes with you."

John stared at a mum Sherlock in dismay. Why wasn't he saying anything? This man, who had to give his opinion on every damn thing, why wasn't he saying anything, why?

Then Sherlock took a deep breath, "Ahem, so you've finally managed to shock the world's first consulting detective," he smiled, "I believe it'll be John Watson, Consulting Doctor now, yes? Though I must say I'm disappointed to see that you've retained your unimaginative mind, because, sorry to say, your job's already been invented by someone else."

John managed a disbelieving chuckle at last, "Disappointed, are ya?"

Sherlock smirked, "You know me, John."

And despite the fact that his boyfriend managed to be a prick on every occasion, John fell in love with Sherlock for the umpteenth time.


End file.
